I visited the Mt. Vernon, WA Research Station today for their ‘fruit pick’ day. Their emphasis was on apples and pears. They have an extensive collection of new and heirloom apples along with all kinds of espaliered plantings of pears. I picked a bucket of Taylor’s Gold and Concorde pears …but I was more interested in their persimmons.
This ‘fruit pick’ day was my opportunity to pick these samples, even though none are ripe. I plan to try ripening with my usual CO2 technique (CO2 from Sodastream in ziplock bag with persimmons for 3 days) and see what I get. From L to R: Jiro, Izu, Saijo, Ichi Kei Ki Jiro
The Research Station is Skagit Valley farmland, cleared in all directions. This site probably gets sunlight from sunup to sundown. A good test of PNW viability. Will return in Nov to check the degree of ripening.
Lovely collection of persimmons and I’m very jealous you got to visit the research station. I’m not sure that is actually Saijo though, since it is usually an elongated acorn shape, not flat.
I hope you’ll give us your thoughts on them when they finish ripening up.
The persimmons there aren’t too far off from mine in terms of color on some of those varieties. I agree with Walter thought that the one labeled as Saijo doesn’t look typical. Mine look like this.
Right @zendog @PharmerDrewee . Even though, in the field, that ‘Saijo’ had a permanent wood-burned and screwed-in label, my own way, way behind Saijo looks acorn-shaped. 
Whatever variety it is, the tree had the most orange-turned fruit of the 4 varieties.
Does CO2 accelerate ripening? I thought it was just a way to deal with astringency, but 3 of those 4 varieties are non-astringent so there would be no point in treating them to remove astringency.
I thought CO2 was preferred by commercial packers to other ways of removing astringency precisely because it didn’t accelerate ripening/shorten shelf life.
I get what you’re saying. I know with Hachiya, the CO2 method removes astringency and softens fruit. I guess I’ll see what happens with Izu, Jiro, and IchiKeiKiJiro. Maybe will only work on Saijo.
In light of @cousinfloyd’s comments, I’ll do a second trial with apple in bag along with the 4 persimmons. Adding some ethylene to the acetaldehyde…yum chemical soup!
I’m late to this party. I think all three of the ones on the right are probably Ichi Ki Kei Jiro.
The one labeled Izu, looks just like the fruit from my mislabeled Izu. I’ve now grafted, what I hope to be, real Izu to it with scionwood from Fruitwood nursery. The growth is distinctive, definitely different than the host.
Kind of embarrassing for a research station to be labeling that fruit saijo imo
There’s no point trying CO2 with Izu, Jiro, and/or IKKJ because they are all non-astringent.