In my hometown of Redlands CA there is a 115+ year old Fuyu (not Jiro) persimmon growing a few blocks from our house there. It was about 30’W x 40’H in the early 60’s. It now exceeds the height of the 3-story Victorian it is adjacent to.
1 Like
What rootstock are you using? Mine are all seedling ;DV.
Regarding the ultimate size of D. Virginiana, I believe I have read a few times in the past that the 60 chromosome trees tend to be a taller, narrower timber form trees. I’m sorry I’m not able to find where I read it at this moment. @Fusion_power would you be in a 60 chromosome area?
And definitely, size will vary by variety, regardless of 60 or 90 chromosome type. Prok clearly wants to be a big tree, but it seems that 100-46 is so busy fruiting that it probably won’t get that huge. But I don’t know how many of the original trees of the varieties are in existence for us to see what they are like now that they are older and many of the trees we are growing will be influenced to some degree by the varying vigor of the seedling rootstocks we use. I actually think I’m going to save any seeds I get from my Prok to be used for rootstock, since I’d like to have potentially more vigorous rootstocks for some trees (including virginiana, kaki and some hybrids) that aren’t as vigorous as a Prok, Saijo or Giombo.
2 Likes
And I know this is a thread about hybrids, but I did see the discussion of D. virginiana dropping branches and thought I’d follow that up. This is definitely a potential issue for multi-grafting, plus something that could freak you out if you didn’t know that it was part of the character of the trees. What seems like a good branch one year may get overtaken by growth higher up and abandoned the next. Here is a video I shot a while back that this discussion finally made me put up.
I was visiting another grower and started plucking off a few of the abandoned branches on one of his trees and he exclaimed, “The tree’s dead?” I quickly showed him it was just some of the branches. It is actually kind of fun popping them off once you know it is a natural event.
3 Likes
My Prok and Pipher (Prok’s maternal parent) are both timber form. Most of the trees that are left in the Claypool orchard are quite tall.
5 Likes
I don’t at this point. Mostly I’m squeezing things in so I’m avoiding pruning styles that make things wider. I’ll keep my persimmons at 15 or so feet tall, probably bringing them back to 12-feet tall each winter, but my trees are still young.
I am going to graft a non-astringent on the top of my Prok this year, giving it apical dominance so that it shouldn’t get orphaned. I’m hoping any astringent Prok fruits below will trick the squirrels into thinking there isn’t anything interesting on the tree. My neighbor has a non-astringent (IKKJ) and so far he’s never gotten a ripe piece of fruit from it since the squirrels get them all well before they start to show any color.
2 Likes
Thanks. How tall would you estimate those trees are now and how old are they at this point?
Lotus.
The earliest Claypools are from around 1980 and the latest around the early 2000s. My Prok got to 30 ft in 10 years. There is one in Versailles state park that I wanted to get scion wood from that is a giant. I couldn’t reach the lowest branch with my large, extendable pole loppers.
1 Like
Check out the continuum hypothesis. I believe it is applicable to some phenomena but not to others which are subject to quantum construction.
I might have to be in a special manifold to get through that.
1 Like
General descriptions of the Diospyros species describe DV as bigger – roughly twice as big as DK. I’m gonna use numbers from Wikipedia here, but I am confident that these numbers would be replicated in most references:
-
D Kaki is described with a mature height of 10 meters / 33 feet. That corresponds closely to Richard’s observation that D Kaki grows as high as a three story house (~9’ ceilings).
-
D Virginiana is described with a mature height of 20 meters / 66 feet. That corresponds to the rows of trees pictured above, though some trees get even bigger.
-
D. Lotus is described with a mature height of 9 meters.
No doubt these numbers refer to seedling trees growing on their own roots. We shouldn’t generalize about grafted trees without controlling for rootstock.
In the east / northeast U.S., both DV and DK cultivars are usually grown on D.V. rootstock, which may boost the size of the grafted DK names. [All of my trees, both the big Prok (DV) tree and the smaller IKKJ (DK) and Kassandra (hybrid) trees, are on seedling DV rootstock. So my comparisions of these persimmons are “apples to apples.” 
]
In the west / northwest U.S., use of D. Lotus (and maybe sometimes D Kaki) rootstock is more common, which may tend to reduce the size of the grafted DV names.
Thus in general, the use of both DV rootstock in the east and DL/DK rootstock in the west may tend to reduce, but probably not eliminate, the size differences noted above.
There may also be an impact of imperfect compatibility between some cultivars and rootstocks, which I suppose could have the effect of dwarfing / dis-invigorating the grafted cultivar.
1 Like
1 Like
All
(JT-02 x Rossey)
I had 8 but I missed pulling a tree tube down all the way. This " combo " of seedling from Clifford’s orchard (I bought these seeds last year from Clifford England) has zero issues at -11 F.
7-tags
(JT-02 x Rossey) Tree 1
(JT-02 x Rossey) Tree 2
(JT-02 x Rossey) Tree 3
(JT-02 x Rossey) Tree 4
(JT-02 x Rossey) Tree 5
(JT-02 x Rossey) Tree 6
(JT-02 x Rossey) Tree 7
17 Likes
Love your orchard in progress!
I hate rabbits!
4 Likes
A man of destiny!
3 Likes
Beautiful orchard. How old are the trees in the picture? What did you use for soil? Thanks!
I just found a research article that states at least one variety of persimmon produces apomictic seedlings. I’m curious if anyone is considering apomixis as a possible confusing factor with persimmon breeding?
1 Like