Persimmon and pear for deer food plot

General Fruit Growing
#21

For persimmon, I’d go with Yates. You want a persimmon that is heavy enough to drop from the tree. I hear Morris Burton has very good flavor, but it’s a smaller fruit, and, from what I hear, doesn’t drop from the tree very well. Yates is larger and will drop free of the tree on its own.

My Yates was precocious as it set several fruit in only its second or third growing season (I can’t recall for sure). As for the taste, I’ve heard that the fruit needs to drop free from the tree before they taste good, and that seemed true for mine. The ones I pulled free, while soft, left an unusual aftertaste. The few that I picked off the ground were much better.

I’m also going to try chestnuts for deer. I received a couple of Dunstan chestnuts a couple of months ago. I suspect it will be a few years before I see any chestnuts. Hopefully, the wait will be worth it.

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#22

The NC Forestry Department sells Persimmons, Chinese Chestnuts, Chickasaw Plums, Crab Apples and others for wildlife. I believe they only sell to NC residents, but other state forestry departments probably have something similar. The price was about $50/100 when I bought them a few years ago.

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#23

@forestandfarm How has your persimmon project been coming along?

#24

It has gone very well. Many of the trees I grated are producing great. I did lose a bunch of grafted trees to a prescribed burn. Even though there was no fire at the trees, the heat was enough to kill them. Other than that one issue, the trees are producing very well.

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