Nikita's Gift Persimmon Fruit Drop?

Hello All,

I have two Nikita’s Gift persimmon trees- first one was planted in 2013 and the other a year later. Both are mature, 6-7 feet tall and bushy. Both are not over-watered, and receive ample sunlight. The fruit from these trees taste amazing.

Anyway, like last year, the trees continue to drop fruit throughout July… For example, I would say that about 15 fruit dropped over night (last night into today). My other persimmon varieties, on the other hand, stopped dropping fruit in June.

Anyone else have this same experience with Nikita’s Gift? Would it be accurate to conclude that Nikita’s Gift, while bearing heavily initially, drops heavily as well?

fyi, I found a Jerry Lehman NAFEX post regarding this:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/nafex/2013-April/047837.html

Jerry cites a fungus or poor pollination… I think pollination would be my issue as there are no male persimmons around to the best of my knowledge.

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Persimmon fruit drop is often associated cracking near the calyx, followed by mold invasion. The calyx cracking occurs when the fruit is not ripening fast enough (e.g. it is too big or heavy) for the given environment.

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It could just be that the tree has too many fruits and needs to drop some. My Eureka is still dropping an occasional fruit despite having been thinned two month ago.

Look at the ones left on the tree not those on the ground. Mine still has a big crop.

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Thanks, guys. I appreciate the feedback. I’m just a little disappointed in the variety because of the continued fruit drop. Given the amount of growth on the tree, I would think it could support more fruit. When fully ripe, though, it is an excellent tasting variety.

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Fruit drop continues… I’m thinking of grafting a male branch to the tree, in hopes that some pollination would improve yield in the future. I had about 70 NG fruits last year from the two 6 ft x 6 ft trees and had a good amount of fruit drop… This year, I’ll be lucky to get 20!

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The ever knowledgable Cliff England chimed in on the topic when I asked him in an email. He stated that he believes the soil might be too rich in fertilizer (nitrogen). Now that I think about it, I have mulched with wood chips for a few years, and I think the decaying underlayer could be the Nitrogen source. I’ll get a soil test done to confirm. Just wanted to follow-up with all…

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Sorry- just wanted to edit my message above… As Cliff pointed out to me, the decaying wouldn’t be a nitrogen source. I likely have too much nitrogen from when I amended the soil when the trees were planted. Now, I’ll look for ways to get that excessive nitrogen out of there…

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Well, the last two dropped a few days ago. This was the second year of its flowers and fruit. Of 19 fruit, 3 survived until this week. One dropped around Sun and the other two on Tues.

This has prompted dear hubby to ask me why would I want to keep a tree that does not like to keep its fruit. That’s a good question. If it drops fruit again next year, I willgraft it over to other varieties that are not so temperamental.

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I can feel your pain! In another thread recently, I posted that I will do the same. I will topwork my NG with another variety. NG appears to be a very temperamental variety. While one of my NGs lost nearly all of its fruit, I have another that has kept a good amount. The difference between the two is the one with fruit drop gets more wind exposure and has more non-native soil.

My NG is in a very protected area. It has better soil than other part of my lawn because that has been my flower bed. I amended soil several years ago.

Well, being temperamental does not go well with a mean gardener like me :slight_smile:

Haha, I agree! Part of your problem could be that the soil is too rich in N. I thought that was the problem last year… but the tree has been in the ground since 2013 or 2014. The N in the ‘good dirt’ I bought must have been uptaken by the tree by now, and I have mulched it which serves as a N sink… so, it will be converted to a multi graft next spring.

This year, my Nikita’s Gift is a full 4 years old tree (planted in the spring of 2015).

It sets over a hundred flowers. So far, most dropped. I don’t even know if any would be left on the tree.

No fertilizer, no mulch but lot of rain. Maybe, NG does need male flowers to help it hang on to its fruit. It’s frustrating to see baby fruit on the ground everyday.

Nikita’s gift oversets and drops excess fruit. Last year I had my little tree set over 60 fruit and finally ripen only 9. But for such a small tree 9 was still a good number.

Other persimmon varieties also overset but carry them. As a result they break branches and get into alternate bearing patterns.

Nikita’s gift doesn’t have these problems. I actually prefer that this tree drops excess fruit rather than destroy itself in the fruiting process.

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Dropped fruit excessively is OK. Dropped ALL the fruit is not !!!

This year it has probably over a hundred fruit. I shall be very PO if it dropped all the fruit.

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Axe it next Spring. I will give you JT-02 to topwork it!!! I did.

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Thank you, Tony. Will remind you in thw winter :smile:

I didn’t end up multi grafting one of my NGs because I didn’t want to start over… I mentioned it in another thread, but I think NG is very sensitive to rain, and location (as much sun as possible). I have a second NG that gets more sun, and it holds onto more fruit.
Overall, I am disappointed in the fruit drop of NG. For such a large tree, I would expect it to hold onto more fruit. But I love the taste, and I have to remind myself that I don’t grow them to sell them. My other persimmon trees aren’t mature yet, and others took on winter damage. So I’m happy to have any fruit I can get from them.

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In a real surprising turn of events, both of my NG did very well this year. My one problematic one held onto a lot of fruit this years. Looking forward to posting pics in the fall. Cliff England gave me some advice to wait until the tree is fully mature to decide whether to take an axe to it. Glad I listened to him.
Based on my experience, the key to success with NG is hoping for a dryer than normal spring, no fertilizer, strategically prune, and plant in direct sun. I sprayed fungicide a couple times, but I don’t think it would have made a difference. I consider myself very lucky this year.

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I believe persimmon is one fruit that no spraying for anything is needed.

We had very wet, too wet than normal spring and then by July it was a mini drought. No fertilizer. My 4th year NG had 100+ flowers, set 20+ fruit. By the end of July, all dropped. If this continues next year, it may get an axe.

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Tree needs to mature I think.

My tree sets over 60 fruits last year. Only matured 9. This year set maybe 40 but maturing about 30.

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