If it isn’t pollinated. If there is a male Asian persimmon it will be pollinated like every other tree
So far my asians include IKKJ, Cardinal and Saijo.
No asian males… and hopefully none of those female asians produce any male flowers.
It would sure make the drying process and any other form of preserving … or fresh eating… better… not to have to deal with seeds.
TNHunter
My Saijo is just starting to turn orange. 7A VA.
If a bunch of growers report that Saijo is late, then I’d be more inclined to believe that there are two varieties in. circulation. Otherwise what you are proposing is that a late-ripening sport has circulated widely by accident. That seems unlikely.
Usually sports are recognized as such, then cloned and compared to the parent. If the phenotypic difference persists, the sport will be named. For example, Ichi Ki Kei Jiro is a putative sport of plain Jiro. There are multiple named sports of Jiro and Fuyu. I find it hard to believe that an unnamed sport with a negative trait (late ripening) would get wide circulation.
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I agree with everything you said 100%
If Saijo really does ripen later in the south that would be extremely cool
But it would be literally the only known variety of fruit in the history of growing fruit to do that (to my knowledge, barring things like lack of water and the many other factors other than temperature)
It would literally act unlike any of tens of thousands of different varieties across species, genera, and families
And sort of against thermodynamics (higher temperatures, better kinetics, faster reactions, faster metabolism)
Given all of that, I think an undocumented sport is the more likely
Let me be clear in that I don’t think it’s likely, there’s probably a simple explanation, but I think it’s MORE likely than one tree variety in all of history bucking the trend
Could have something to do with amount of chill hours or something/when the blooms set. Do we see anything similar in apples? Chat gpt said yes for both but we all know it can hallucinate
For example this site says in texas asian persimmon start ripening in november and december. Thats a lot later than most asian varieties here in ny
Interestingly the wikipedia entry for winter banana apples has the same sort of difference. I suspect something to do with when they get enough chill hours to set next years buds
This feels thread worthy. We should have people from different states report ripening and flowering time for cultivars of fruit with chill hour requirements this upcoming season
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Wikipedia says winter banana ripens earlier in the south, not later
Maybe because persimmons are from a tropical genus they might do funny things that aren’t like temperate fruits and don’t fall into the standard chilling hour growing degree day paradigm, as @zendog says #persimmonsareweird
But I think it’s safe to say many persimmon varieties ripen earlier in the south vs the north just from the posts we have on these forums
Man i cant read. Curious still. Chat gpt could well be hallucinating but i do see persimmons listed a few places. If it happens for any reason i think it will have to do with chill hours or maybe indeed fruit wont ripen when above a certain temp? Idk
Wait actually i reread it. It shows winter banana ripening all the way till december vs northern ripens in November. Small amount but still later.
My Kasandra started ripening fruit Sept 30 and I found another ripe today… 4 so far.
That is earlier that most of you up north or in cooler climates… Right ?
When does your Kasandra normally start ripening ?
My IKKJ started ripening fruit late September and is continuing into October.
TNHunter
That’s the storage time after picking. Picking is all earlier
This seems by far the most plausible explanation I’ve seen.
It could also be the case that (at least some) persimmons will develop fruit to a certain point but will not engage the final ripening process until certain low nighttime temperatures are reached (obviously nowhere close to the frost some old timers purport)
We have the data to test the chilling hours hypothesis: do southern trees bloom later than northern trees (I’m pretty sure the answer is no)
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My Kasandra which is grafted to a southern DV rootstock was blooming on May 18.
My IKKJiro, H63A, Barbaras blush… were blooming about the same time. They all set fruit about the same time too.
Since it warms up earlier down here… I expext our southern persimmons do bloom earlier than those in more northern locations.
TNHunter
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Based on my recollection of looking at @TNHunter’s pix this spring, I’d say that his bloom, fruit set, etc are roughly 1 month ahead of mine here.
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