My grade-school days were spent in Redlands CA – a much different southern CA environment than my present location. One of our “climbing” trees was a half-century old Fuyu type persimmon. By October those fruits were ripe and firm – not crisp but not mush either. I don’t think I can achieve that flavor here.
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I like Jiro persimmons in the whole spectrum of ripeness from crunchy to ripe to mushy. The easy way to achieve that would be to get a huge bag of them at crunchy stage. By the time I consume half of it, I get to ripe stage and the last ones (or damaged ones when picked) are mushy.
How to get a huge bag? Just knock on a random
neighbor here and ask for persimmons. They’ll be so glad you asked as they have no idea how to get rid off it 
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@DennisD, once the leaves start turning color and falling off, there is no more ripening to be had. You can safely remove all the fruit and ripen them indoors with a few apples. They will ripen better than leaving them outdoors in the cold.
can anyone tell the difference from IKKJ and Jiro? is early jiro the same as IKKJ? i cant tell them apart. anyone grow these that can tell me more about their difference? i know jiro grows to be bigger not as dwarfing as IKKJ. But im trying to see the difference in the fruit size, productivity, flavor?
jiro is very common here in WA state but IKKJ is not
The differences will be more pronounced in some climates than others.
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Supposedly, IKKJ is a bud sport of Jiro. Supposedly, it is more cold hardy than Jiro and emerges from dormancy slightly later, which traits may be related.
I have 3 IKKJ trees but no plain Jiro so I can’t make a comparison. What I’m saying is based on what I’ve read.
FWIW, my IKKJ trees, grafted on DV, seem somewhat dwarfing – with a little pruning I can keep them at ~15’ tall and wide. This dwarfing is helpful – It’s important to be able to access the fruit for picking, which seems to require snipping the stem.
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Today I picked a few more. These are the best I’ve had so far in the crunchy stage from this tree. The texture is like a very fine apple, but half the moisture – reminiscent of some Jujubes. When I bite into it, the flavor is at first absent, then pleasantly sweet, then mild persimmon, which increases to moderate persimmon and lingers long after eating a slice. For crunchy stage, I’ll give it a B+. There’s still a dozen on the tree.
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I like them when they are just slightly softer. It seems to be juicier and sweeter at that stage.
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Now what does N stand for in PCNA?
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Non
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Here’s before and after pictures of today’s harvest. Also, a photo of black scale that ants had begun bringing to calyxes on lower fruit.
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These look so perfectly tree ripened. What’re you protecting the tree from?
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Beautiful fruit!
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Did you like your soft Jiro better than Saijo this year?
I like PCNA firmer than that.
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I needed to let it go soft or it was still astringent. Some years it never loses astringency. Growing persimmons to eat them crunchy this far north doesn’t always work.
Much better than Saijo this year. Consistently 20+ brix. Store bought was around 15 brix even after going soft.
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But we’re talking about Jiro.
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how are you ripening them?
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