had to situate our fuyu persimmons at the north side of our property to spare the leaves from getting burnt by vegas’ dry heat, protecting from direct noon sun.
btw, quite intriguing that virginiana tolerates Phoenix’ weather
Yes D. virginiana root system is more fibrous and tolerates drought and soil salinity better than lotus and kaki
I’ve been trying to grow kaki (on D. virginiana) in Vegas.
I have an 8’ tall Fuyu (well, sold as Fuyu, but possibly Jiro) that is hanging on grimly to life. It leafs out every spring (and is budding right now) and looks great until the summer arrives, at which point the leaves all slowly burn to a crisp over a period of weeks, despite the fact that it is in a partially shaded location. It manages to store up just enough sugar to leaf out again next year, but never manages to put on much growth. I doubt that it will ever fruit, and eventually I think I will graft over it. Perhaps I will try Chocolate based on @snowjunky 's recommendation.
I also tried Giombo, Nikita’s Gift, and Saijo, all planted in the winter as whips. They all leafed out and started growing vigorously through the spring, but once summer rolled around, Giombo and Nikita’s Gift were executed by the sun, despite my best efforts (deep mulch, carefully timed watering to keep the soil moist but not wet, misting several times a day to reduce temperature). The leaves would wilt as the heat mounted during the day, and they would not recover until night. As the summer progressed, the recovery time took longer and longer until they finally remained wilted straight through to the next sunrise, at which point they fried. I am no botanist, but it looks like the trees’ roots just couldn’t pull enough water to the leaves to cover the transpiration, or maybe the stomas all closed due to the heat and the leaves could not cool themselves.
The exception was Saijo. Its leaves did not burn, but remained a deep, glossy green – unquestionably the most attractive of all of the kakis. It looked almost happy, although during the worst 110+ degree days, the leaves would sometimes begin to wilt after noon (but they always bounced back within minutes as soon as the sun went down). Saijo put on reasonable growth and now has three decent preliminary scaffold limbs. Its buds are swelling now.
Meanwhile, my jujubes thrived in the heat, and continued to grow rapidly even through the hottest part of the summer. My Honey Jar – in a full-sun location – went from around 5/8" caliber and 3’ tall (at the beginning of its second leaf) to a towering 12-foot, thick-trunked monster in a single season, and even produced about 20 fruit. (Another Honey Jar, planted at the same time in a 1/2 shaded location, grew almost as tall but is spindly with about a third of the caliper of the other, and did not fruit.) I also have a Chico in a good location, and it got up to about 4’ tall with a little over 1/2 inch caliper in its first season. My puppy then chewed it to the ground in the winter, severing it just above the graft (there remained maybe half an inch of Chico wood above the graft). Nevertheless, that remaining sliver of Chico wood sprouted and shot back up to about 9’ tall in a single season, with good caliper and branching. It’s now bigger than the smaller Honey Jar despite being a year younger and having had to start over from basically nothing last year.
It seems that jujubes truly adore heat and as much direct sun as possible. I have a lot of trees planted at my family’s home in Georgia, and the jujubes are the only species that are clearly more vigorous in Vegas instead of the other way around.
Saijo may not love the heat like jujubes do, but it certainly seems tolerant. Now that it has had a year to grow out a root system, I’m curious to see if it will do better. I just planted a second one in place of the slain Giombo, so hopefully time will tell.
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Nice!
quite commendable your perseverance with simmons in this part of the southwest, which is hands-down the most challenging! Have to thank you for the most valuable hands-on experience you just posted(and hopefully will continue to post), as have met a number of orchardists in vegas but with jjust the few paragraphs you posted-- can already conclude you have the widest “vocabulary” when it comes to 'simmons 
our fuyu’s foliage didn’t get parched, but that was because totally shielded from direct sunlight 9 AM to 3 PM. The fruits were tiny, as a result, and birds made short work of the few tiny fruits produced. Sadly had to give it up as too much trouble and the fuyus shipped from california are so much better in size and overall quality, and quite cheap.
can almost predict you will get 200 fruits this year, and double or triple that as your trees get bigger and gets more sunlight on their solar panels.
btw, pm us if you intend to top-work a few more cultivars to your juju trees. We gladly hold pro-bono grafting sessions around town and at school gardens as ‘public service’. Or drop off some budwood if you are already handy with grafting
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Wow that’s really cool of you to teach grafting! I shared a couple of my grafting tricks on @BobVance
2022 jujube thread if it’s of any value. Here’s the link: Jujube 2022 - #78 by snowjunky
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i like it! And yes, grafting is an art and science so enjoy sharing with others, especially the younger generations nowadays who seem to be more preoccupied with tech/virtual reality than with “down-to-earth” endeavors
Thank you @jujubemulberry . I’m happy to contribute a little bit. You are a big reason for why I have a lot of, well, jujubes and mulberries. I own a copy of your book and have read most of your posts over the years — a wealth of information.
I have only a few trees here and quite a bit more in Georgia, but I definitely don’t merit the title of “orchardist.” I’ve only been growing fruit trees for the last four years or so, and have yet to do a single graft (I know I need to learn). Most of my knowledge comes from this forum, and I have little practical experience, so I’m grateful for your offer of a hands-on demonstration.
We’ll see. I tend to have a heavy hand with the pruners, and I headed off the central leader of the big Honey Jar at about 8 or 9 feet, leaving just the adjoining secondary branch at the top node uncut to try to push more lower growth. I also pruned off all but four scaffold limbs to try to shape it into a (sort-of) modified central leader configuration, but I’m still hoping that I’ll get a decent amount of fruit this year. I left the spindly Honey Jar to grow au naturelle since it needs the height more.
As for the persimmons, I didn’t know that the tough conditions here would dwarf the fruit, although it makes sense. I heard somewhere that someone had a mature non-astringent kaki of some type in a back yard in Henderson that didn’t mind the heat and produced lots of fruit, but I’ve never been able to confirm that story and in light of the evidence, it seems doubtful. I’d like to try the newer Suruga cultivar since it reportedly has very good PCNA fruit and needs a long growing season (which is one thing we definitely have here) but unless there are reports of it dealing well with our extreme temperatures, I’m not optimistic.
For now, Saijo seems to be the best bet. I am sort of speculating that the glossy nature of its leaves provides them with some sort of protection from extreme temperatures that the other varieties I’ve tried (all of which had non-glossy leaves) lack. I just hope the fruit isn’t dwarfed, as Saijo fruit is relatively small to begin with.
that book–i cringe when find myself browsing through it, lol! Nobody needs it if you are a member here, as have pretty much posted everything here that was posted there(plus the fact that there’s a multitude of juju aficionados posting valuable info here). A couple more years and you will likely be posting insights on jujus too just as have been posting re: simmons
keep everyone here posted on Suruga/Saijo, as the species is quite a challenge. Btw, hachiya might be something you could experiment on as one of our fellow locals(Mr Kohler of youtube) posted what seems to be a sizeable unsheltered tree that is productive, seen at around 2 minutes from start of video. John commented that it is not as productive as the ones in cali, but to me it is amazing enough for having been unscathed unsheltered from vegas blazing sun all these years-- even if it never produced fruits imo.
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Sorry to be the bearer of bad news about Suruga in Phoenix. It is reported to have leaf issues, but I tried it anyway. Turns out it has much worst desert heat tolerance than any other persimmon I’ve tried. Leaves are so sensitive to the dry heat even in full shade and they fall off very easily.
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That’s interesting. In California when we had dry heat of 113 it had no effect on Suruga except for a few singed leaves. When we had 111 degrees with strong drying winds that killed two eucalyptus trees, it had no effect on Suruga except for sunburn on a few fruits.
I understand that Phoenix temps get hotter than 113 and for longer periods, but losing leaves is generally a response to lack of water. Burnt leaf edges and sunburned fruit are a response to heat if they have water. Young Asian persimmon trees with small root systems and lack of water can lose their leaves even at 100-105. I’ve never seen older trees with larger root systems and adequate water lose leaves when it’s hot. I’ve seen older naturalized persimmon trees in California lose leaves when temps get above 105, because they have no water, but they come back the next year.
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I checked this thread out because I thought there were talks about new jujubes. I would never have guessed people discuss persimmons here.
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oops, my bad, i admittedly got too excited about simmons and digressed…
again…
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That’s strange. Yes my Suruga was small as were my other persimmons. They were under the same conditions and water. It also had branch die back. I don’t remember the rootstock, but they all were in pots that first year.
Then that was the major problem. Small trees and especially those in pots don’t have the root system to soak up enough water to protect the trees. When the air temp is 110 the roots are almost 110 also. My Suruga had been in the ground for at least 10 years when it had to deal with 110+ temps.
My Izu, Early Fuyu, Hana Fuyu and Chocolate grew well in pots the first year unlike the Suruga. They had the same pots, potting soil, water and shade. The Chocolate was super strong compared to the others and the Suruga was super weak and died the next year. Maybe the Suruga was mislabeled 
? The Chocolate continues to be stronger in ground compared to the others.
My Suruga outgrew and outproduced all my other Asian persimmons.
It may be that you just got a weak little tree.
Does Suruga produce pollen for cross pollination?
Yes, it produces pollen.
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Nice, then it might be worth another try to pair up with the Chocolate.