Jake,
Also be aware that persimmon naturally ‘self-prunes’ lower limbs as it gains height… so, if you’re grafting onto lower scaffold limbs, within a few years, those varieties may ‘disappear’, as they’ll decline, die, and be shed off. Multi-variety persimmon trees generally don’t preserve multiple varieties as well as apples/pears do.
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Thank you @Lucky_P , that’s good to know. I did buy a few rootstocks, so maybe I’ll graft some backups of JT-02 and Rosseyanka on those, even though I plan to plant them at my parents’ house
That’s interesting … is it due to your climate, or critters, or does it also occur on D. virginiana in zone 8 and higher?
I’ve never observed it in southern CA on D. kaki.
It just seems to abandon internal and unwanted branches that seem otherwise fine with buds and thick growth. Definitely small thin branches are the first to get self pruned but even proper scions material is discarded. I can just touch various twigs in late winter and they pop off dead. It is pretty interesting since it removes the need to prune for the most part.
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I have observed the same thing here in SW MO. If you’re wondering if small branches are dead or alive just give them a little nudge and the dead ones pop right off.
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I’ve seen that behavior on Prunus branches pencil thickness or less, but never on anything I’d call a scaffold branch.
I have not seen it happen on large branches yet, mine are still small though so we must look to others to answer the question of how big. But I would still say it is an unusual amount of self pruning that is happening with the D.V.
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Well, that may have been a poor choice on my part, Richard… certainly a term that I don’t use with any regularity.
It was just intended as a cautionary comment that if you graft onto lower branches on a persimmon… they will almost certainly eventually be self-pruned as they become shaded or otherwise dominated by branches higher in the canopy, so don’t be surprised that cultivar(s) grafted onto apical sites in the top of tree will eventually be ‘the only thing left’.
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I’ve noticed that in my D. virginiana, branch self pruning is more likely to occur on larger branches if the tree, and particularly the branches in question are in shade. The tree will try growing straight up to catch more light, and will abandon these lower branches. It readily happens to small branches regardless of their positioning on the trees.
Kaki will shed the tiniest branches, but also branches that fruited heavily the year before. These just seem to wither away after the fruit matured. Some of these fruiting branches often have no vegetative buds form due to the abundance of flowers, and are lost by default.
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How tall do you let your D. virginiana persimmons grow? The D. kaki orchards I’ve observed in CA are pruned to 8 ft. to prevent shoots from reaching above 12 ft.
They go as high as they want, here.
I can see the benefit of keeping some shorter…while most virginianas either drop or are fairly easily shaken out when ripe, there is the ‘splat’ factor…and for those that have to be snipped off, like Rosseyanka, a 10-ft stepladder still wouldn’t get me high enough to pick all the fruits last fall.
So you don’t train them “open vase”? Perhaps the latter is a poor idea in your environment?
D. Virginiana is much more vigorous than D.Kaki. Judging from my experience with Prok, it takes a lot of work to keep DV under 15-20’. New shoots grow 5-6’ per year. Judging from my experience with IKKJ and Kassandra, it is relatively easy to keep Kaki or hybrids to ~15’ or less…
… in your climate.
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DV is a forest adapted tree. It grows taller in just about any climate. I have a few older native DV trees on my land that are about a foot diameter and easily 50 feet tall.
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That hasn’t been my experience.
Saijo and Jiro grow fast here. DV is noticeably slower and has just one large flush. Saijo seems to grow almost continuously.
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Saijo is a good example of a vigorous, upright growing kaki. Many of my astringent varieties seem to have amazing vigor even compared to virginiana.
I believe that is true about the cultivar Prok, and many other wild specimens. But I don’t believe it is true about D.v. cultivars in general.
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Richard, you are a retired mathematician. Where does the “believe” come in at? Take this as ribbing, not a serious complaint.
I can’t say what most selected varieties do but I can clearly state that there are 7 trees in the edge of the woods behind my house with the largest about a foot diameter and 50 feet tall. The other trees are mostly 6 to 8 inches diameter and between 35 and 45 feet tall. I would speculate that D.v. from further north won’t grow as tall so there is a good chance you are at least partially correct. There is also a good chance that some of the NorthEast selections would grow that tall if given 40 or 50 years to grow.
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