NG has an excellent flavor, but you should pick them late (Dec for NJ). I prefer it over my non-astringents Taopan, Saijo, and my non-astringents Fuyu and Fuyu Imoto.
Out of my producing varieties, it is the most sensitive to fruit drop. I will take Tony’s advice and not even fertilize my lawn next year. I’ll plant zoysia grass plugs instead that require no fertilizer… My father-in-law used Miracle Grow in my garden this year, and although he didn’t water my NG trees with it, I think it impacted my yield for this year…
The hybrid kaki I tasted this year were excellent. My favorite I tried was a non astringent American called early gold. My rootstock are large enough now where I can easily graft it over and have kaki hybrids in a couple of years. My lotus are 15’ tall now and I’m going to top work them next year to kaki hybrids. My American are also ready to be top worked. They are mostly 3 feet tall. I do have one five footer and several one footers. The growth rate differences demonstrate the difference in genetics. Here are the Americans.
Here’s a photo showing variation of hybrid persimmon leaves (hopefully I’ll be able to update with fruit photos next year). All of these are within the 3 - 5 year range and all are either seedlings of Rosseyanka or seedlings that were pollinated by F2 Rosseyanka males. For reference, the leaf at the top left corner is from Rosseyanka.
They sure do, Tony. And it’s tough to tell from the photo, but they’re glossy like Kaki too. I think Clff once told me that 3 out of 10 persimmons are female. So maybe 3 or 4 of these will yield fruit.
This cold weather we’re all experience right now kind of stinks, but it should yield some good information about some of the newer hybrid persimmons out there and how truly cold hardy they are. I’m definitely looking forward to spring and seeing how this cold (forecast of -12 this weekend) plays out with my own hybrids.
I grafted a Nikita’s gift in 2015 and got several fruits from it this past year (2017). That seems to be pretty typical for kaki grafts on good size established rootstocks like I normally field graft. I had one kaki graft, a 20th century, fruit for me just the year after grafting. My Saijo grafts seem slower to fruit, even though they’re growing vigorously. Virginiana grafts seem slower yet. I have gotten fruit two years after grafting from virginiana grafts, but I also have a virginiana that I grafted in ‘09 that has barely fruited at all for me yet despite growing well (to 15-20’ tall). My limited experience so far leads me to think 4-5 years to first fruit may be about average for virginiana grafts.
I’m four or five years in from seed but haven’t got any fruit yet… though I did a bit of transplanting which I’m sure didn’t help. I think the average is 5 - 7 years. Cliff England posted pictures of a hybrid seedling of his that produced after 3 or 4 years. So somewhere in that range. Grafting to an established tree would help. I’ll probably start doing that with more recent seedlings onto whatever males I get from the first batch.
@SMC_zone6 and @cousinfloyd thanks for the info. I’m working with 1-2 year seedlings and grafting to them. Hope to get some northern cold weather wood to graft.
I grafted a 100-46 Lehman’s Delight scion from Cliff England to a 6 year old american persimmon seedling 3 years ago. It bore 13 persimmons last year, and over 100 this year. They were the largest and best persimmons I have eaten.
