This is unfortunately not always true. The Gora varieties as well as Kasandra in my experience do not measure up to NG in taste
Chuchupaka is very good, for a first persimmon. I have over a dozen more on the tree and will know better. I’ve heard it is also very cold hardy. It seems much more vigorous and productive compared to NG.
Thanks for the report on Chuchupaka. I can’t wait until mine starts fruiting. What is the fruit size relative to Nikita?
Does Chuchupaka produce male flowers? Trying to avoid getting seeds in the fruits if possible.
The kakis are a bit smaller than representative.
This one was brix 22. But picked early due to another bird peck. Still very sweet with no hint of astringency.
I have not seen it produce male flowers.
Personally I prefer pollinated fruit as it tastes sweeter.
@ramv are those from potted trees? My Kassandras averaged ~60 grams and my one and only JT -02 was larger, although I didn’t weigh it. Looking forward to your taste notes.
In ground. The JT02 size may not be representative. I believe the other 2 are.
I also have lot of Kasandra but haven’t been picked yet. These were picked because birds got to them first.
I happen to have a bunch of Kasandra sitting on the counter, ripening. Ten of them together weighed 597 g. So that’s an average ~60 g here too. I would also say that JT-02 is bigger. Those are still all on the tree.
JT02 was the most juicy of the 3. texture is more watery. It was well pollinated and may have been the sweetest. (by a slight amount)
Chuchupaka was exactly in the middle. Slightly Less Sweet but firmer than JT02. Not pollinated.
Nikita’s gift has a firm, almost buttery texture. I would give it the edge in this tasting as it has the best mouth feel. Only one seed.
I believe pollination makes fruit tastier and saw this in this small sample.
Did the NG have more asian or american in the taste? My freeloading NG is still dropping fruit. I have Rosseyanka also. Their taste is kind of unique, not really one side or the other.
My Nikita’s Gift at the old home tasted like sweet Kaki. No hints of DV at all with firm texture.
Tony
Nice report and glad to see those varieties side by side. I assume your PVNA trees are doing the pollinating, or do you have something else like Rossy male, a male American persimmons, etc.?
If your PVNA trees are your pollinators, perhaps Chuchupaka has too much American in the mix and isn’t pollinated by pure kaki trees.
NG has a strong American taste. But very firm texture. And high sweetness. It is still the benchmark hybrid persimmon IMO.
Yes my numerous PVNA trees are pollinating.
The main problem is distance. JT02 is closest to the PVNA trees. Chuchupaka is almost 200 feet away with a house in between. Hence the low pollination.
Interesting.
I just cut down some things giving mine more sun. Maybe now it will hold fruit.
Plenty of wild male americans around me and my hybrid were seedless. So at least for the hybrid I have americans do nothing for pollination. Makes you wonder how much american they really have in them if PVNA will pollinate.
I have a tiny Gora Goverla tree (3.5 feet tall probably) that has improbably set and held 4 persimmons. I expect they will get even bigger as the tree matures, but even the little tree put out some impressive sized fruit, including the largest which is 170 grams. At one point when they were starting to size up, the tree was almost bent into a u shape with the fruit nearly on the ground, but I staked it up and it powered on. Maybe if I plant one next to Nikita it will shame Nikita into actually holding a few fruit for me.
I’m mostly interested in these as a possible replacement for non astringent fruit and just removing the astringency with alcohol/CO2, etc. I put the 4 hard Goras into a bag with a still hard Nikita’s Gift a friend gave me and a shot of gin in a shallow bowl. I’ll taste them in 4 days. I would normally use vodka but didn’t have any so hopefully the gin doesn’t mess up the taste.
I’m not expecting Gora Goverla to compete with some of the better hybrids for taste, but if they are as good as a fuyu/jiro, etc. when I’ve removed the astringency and they’re still hard that would be great. Growing the non astringents here is pretty tough since the squirrels steal most or all of them.
I have a large male D.virginiana tree in my yard, and all of my kaki have been seedless but all of my hybrids (Rosseyanka, Sestronka, Nikita’s Gift, Kasandra, JT-02) have had seeds. So based on that evidence, I think the American males do pollinate the hybrids.
