@Preston Impressive growth!
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It is not Dar Sofiyivky, but rather virginiana of some sort.
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I don’t have enough experience to know about Dar Sofiyivki in particular, but I have seen some persimmon varieties show wildly different leaf shape, size, etc their first year than in subsequent years. Could that be what’s going on here?
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There are rumors of an ersatz Dar Sofiyivki making the rounds. Sounds like youre on board with that notion @Harbin. What’s your reasoning? Do you have any photos that might help folks stateside determine if they have the real McCoy? Mine came to me from Ukraine, so Im thinking it’s probably genuine.
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Itd be good to know your source, Jay.
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@beetree was kind enough to share Dar Sofiyivki with me.
The leaves of what I have look more like what @harbin shows in the post linked below, but then again so do half of the ungrafted seedlings in my collection.
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I got 2 DS grafted trees with Dax scions from Europe and the leaves look similar to Harbin and Preston. Bee tree also got the scion from Dax.
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Well, I guess we’ll know for sure in a couple years!
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indeed
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Dax was my source as well.
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Always hard to tell on first year leaves after grafting. The leaves dont look like any other Virginiana I have.
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Agreed. On my young grafts, the leaves can be giant or be indistinguishable from seedling leaves, but then look completely different the next year.
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@Harbin could you share photos of current season growth?
This has absolutely no fuzz on the stems and while green the stems have a bloom that can be rubbed off.
Any fool proof ways to identify DS?
Last photo is Nakitas Gift on the left DS on the right.
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By their fruits ye shall know them. I too have Dar Sofievkiy from Dax.
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OK, I went to make some photos of my Dar Sofiyivky and I focused on the larger leaves:
and here is H-120 just for comparison:
That bloom on the new shoots suggests virginiana, but I may be wrong in which case I apologise.
In any case you have to wait for the fruits. DS takes some time to fruit unless you topwork older tree.
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I’ll have to pay closer attention to the new growth on my trees next spring! Never noticed that difference.
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@Harbin Thank you for sharing the photos of your DS. I do have a much larger one that is over 8ft tall with good branching already so I hope to see some fruit in a couple years.
@jcguarneri I thought the bald stems are unusual and probably a good place to start with the id. All the Virginiana I grow have stems with some degree of fuzz and many are literally hairy. First 2 photos are DS vs Virginiana stem
I’ll leave more photos here in the meantime so we can compare. IMO the DS from Dax’s euro source does look like Harbin’s tree and other DS on the net. I’ll remain hopeful but if I do make scion available it will come with the disclaimer that I have not fruited it yet. To me the leaf shape looks correct and they are really thick and not flimsy compared to Virginiana leaf.
Compared to seedling Virginiana and H-120
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Compared to Zima Khurma leaf on the left
![20230918_133235|486x1000]
(upload://cO5h2IyAs7mtd3sMwOJyhnHK2Ku.jpeg)
Compared to Virginiana
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I have a little 1 meter tall Dar Sofiyivky that seems like it will hold the fruits to maybe fully ripen. I thinned out 90% of the fruitlets… seems to be precocious for me… My other kaki and Virginiana have dropped their fruits almost a month ago. DS still holding 6 ish fruits. They are more orange in person, phone makes it look more pale.
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