Keep in mind that this last season provided exceptionally good ripening conditions for late summer-fall ripening fruit. That timely drought and long string of warm blue sky days perfectly timed may not repeat for a while.
True, though the early season was pretty cloudy. It resulted in lower fruit-set for most of my jujube and persimmons. The one IKKJ with a heavy set was a bit of an outlier. Low set and sunny late weather does make for some good fruit. Though it was too little, too late for many of my figs- they were just too far behind to catch up. Some of the bushes that were very productive in past years only ripened a handful of fruit.
Fwiw, you may want to reconsider your avoidance of astringent varieties. I ate a lot of Kasandra this year. I have developed a pretty good protocol for removing astringency. First, leave the fruit on the tree as long as possible. Pick before any threatened hard frost. At this stage here, the fruits are bright orange (not ripe red), soft at the bottom but hard at the top, with residual astringency in the shoulders especially in/just under the skin. Next, place the fruits one layer deep in a box or tray. Store them in a cool (e.g., 50-60 F) location, such as a garage. Over a week or two, they will soften further. Watch for the point where the top is soft enough that you can remove the stem, calyx and pith in one piece. Finally, when the fruit have reached this degree of softness, spray the fruit with ethanol (e.g., 80 proof vodka). You only have to spray the exposed upper surfaces because that’s where the residual astringency sits.
Following this protocol, I ended up with zero astringency. Moreover the Kasandra fruit are much tastier than PCNA kakis,
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I have come to the conclusion that most of the benefit of warm sunny weather comes in the last 3 weeks before harvest.
That said, one thing that seems nearly certain is that ripening seasons shall tend to be longer and longer and that should make Kaki persimmons increasinigly growable further north than in the past. I’m growing a couple of astringent ones, including Great Wall, and the fruit was pretty good this year. They are mostly against a SE facing stone wall which helps get the brix up.
Yeah, I also prefer Fuyus for their potentially crisp texture- for more complex flavors I think American selected varieties can be very tasty. I have Szukis, and even though some of the fruit is too astringent even when soft, most of the ones falling on the ground are quite tasty. They ripen right off the tree from late Sept through most of Oct and provide a nice addition to later harvest. They were all done and trees were defoliated by the time I harvested my small and first crop of Kakis- at least the first in a few years. They ripened just fine at room temp in the kitchen. It took a little over a week and they were rock hard when I harvested them but pretty orange, although not as solidly orange as yours. Those look great.
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While that very well could be true and I haven’t seen anything to counter it, I think the earlier season sun still matters a lot, at least for some fruit. For example, jujubes set fruit in late June and July, so any stretch of cloudy weather can result in much lower set. Some cultivars seem much more sensitive to it than others and on some trees I went from picking multiple pounds in previous years to a few ounces. And persimmons may appear to set a lot of fruit, but they also continue to drop fruit that can’t be supported. Likewise, figs don’t seem to really get started until they’ve had enough warm sunny weather. So having a nice warm sunny Sept/Oct is great for quality, but it doesn’t help much if there isn’t a lot of fruit on the tree (or they are too far behind like some of my figs).
Seems pretty dependent on varieties. Korea, Inchon, Picudo, Chienting and Nikita’s Gift have never been edible off the tree for me. Miss Kim and H118 would sometimes get there.
Thanks- I kept taking pictures and sending them to my wife and saying “Are these orange or green?”. My color blindness isn’t normally a problem, but for some reason it is an issue with persimmons. Her answer was always “wait longer”, at least until late October. Good thing I haven’t had too many animals eat persimmons, even the NA ones, so waiting longer only cost a few fruit (possibly to humans).
I’ll try that with Kassandra next year. I suspect that this process will have different results for different astringent cultivars, since some seem pretty stubbornly astringent. Do you then let the alcohol evaporate off?
But, I’m a bit skeptical that it will remove all astringency, as even a hint is enough for me to pass on it. For many astringent persimmons they need to basically be liquid before they are palatable to me. And I like my fruit at least somewhat firm. That taste is shared by the rest of the family, other than my wife. The kids say “no thanks” to any astringent variety, even a soft one. And my mom treats them like poison, saying she had allergic reaction the one time she tried them. So, I mostly keep the astringent trees around because I’d feel bad cutting them down. And to give away. If I couldn’t grow the NA ones, I’d probably just buy them at the grocery store, as I have just started to, now that we finished eating the ones I picked a few months ago.
I hear you. I no longer offer American persimmons to friends or family because I can never be sure that the astringency will be gone. And I’ve never had any success using ethanol to remove astringency from Americans fruit.
That said, this year I gave friends and family roughly 300 Kasandra fruits (along with instructions) and nobody complained. I turned another ~500 into sauce, where one rotten persimmon could have ruined the batch, and it was all good. We used it at Thanksgiving.
I can’t guarantee that the texture will match anyone’s ideal. Flesh of a ripe Kasandra isn’t “firm” but it isn’t “liquid” either. If you remove the stem/calyx/pith you can either pop the whole fruit into you mouth or cut it in half a pop the halves. FWIW, this year’s crop was heavily seeded. I tolerated the seeds because they seemed to improve the flavor.
One other note. We tried various strategies for drying the fruit. The non-astringent “sauce” takes ~1 day in the dehydrator to because a tasty fruit leather. Also, we peeled some still hard fruit and dried them. After ~3-4 days it was a decent if small hoshigaki. Drying seemed to accelerate the loss of astringency. On the other hand, drying the unpeeled fruit was generally a failure. The dried fruit was dominated by the skin and seeds, both hard.
Oh, yeah – your question: Yes, I sprayed the fruit then just let the vodka evaporate. I think I sprayed some of the fruit twice just for insurance. It might increase the effectiveness to add a cover so that the ethanol vapor lingers longer, but I didn’t do that.
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I wonder how much that affects the astringency level in Kassandra. With some persimmons being PVNA (non astringent with pollination), it seems there is some relationship. I don’t get any seeds in any of my persimmons. I would add a male at the site with Kassandra and Chienting (a PVNA), but I also have IKKJ and Chinibuli there and don’t want to start getting seeds in them.
I assume not at all. Kasandra’s parents do not have PVA/PVNA genetics. Also, a PVNA loses astringency while still hard; Kasandra did not give any hit of that pattern. Finally, not all of the Kasandra’s were seeded. My impression was that the seeded ones tasted better but I don’t think the seeded and unseeded lost astringency at different rates.
I should add that I think it’s possible that the pollinator affects the flavor. Most of the Kasandras were pollinated by nearby potted PVNAs, Chocolate and Coffee Cake. A few may have been pollinated by random male flowers on nearby Americans, including root suckers. I think it’s possible that Kasandra pollinated by Coffee Cake tastes better than Kasandra pollinated by a root sucker from a male DV seedling rootstock.
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OK, good point. I don’t know much about it, other than an impression that astringency is controlled by multiple genes and is complicated, different for different varieties.
That is wild- I’ve never heard of anything like that. Seems like this is an area which could use more research.
I’m aware of one research report showing that the flavor of the PCNA variety Soshu was influenced by the pollinator.
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Wow…
The highest percentage of fruit set and average fruit weight were obtained by pollinating with ‘Male 8’. The average seed number per fruit varied from 2 to 4. Fruit juice and skin color were also affected by the pollen donors. In addition, differences in flesh firmness, tannin content, Vc content, soluble solids content, titratable acid contented depended on treatments.
Though this does somewhat support my concern that pollination could potentially impact astringency, since the pollen source was found to impact the tannin content. Though it is definitely still worth a try.
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I’m strictly speaking of brix. Obviously set is affected by what is happening when it does, mostly it’s about energy reserves and photosyn can’t happen much when the sun don’t shine.
I was talking about a native to U.S. variety.
I agree, as I said in the last sentence or my earlier reply:
So having a nice warm sunny Sept/Oct is great for quality, but it doesn’t help much if there isn’t a lot of fruit on the tree (or they are too far behind like some of my figs).
But, even with the good finish and (as you noted) increasingly long seasons, it wasn’t quite as good a persimmon year for me as the prior years. At least for some cultivars/trees. And yes, there are potential counterpoints such as other trees/varieties that came into bearing, but I assume that is just them reaching a sufficient age. And it could be just a few outlier trees, but my suspicion is also based on lower solar generation stats from the early season and the similar phenomena in those other fruiting species (jujube and figs) that I mentioned.
Yes, my mention of jujubes and figs as an examples was OT. But, not to be too prickly, at least half of the persimmon cultivars described in this thread are not “native to U.S. variety”, as they are Kaki 
"Most other kaki 0 to -5 zone7b, or zone 8 in extreme midwestern/mountain polar vortex blasts.
To be safe, especially in the midwest, I recommend going with things hardy a half zone above you, if in 6b plant those I listed in 6a, if in 7a plant those listed in 6b, etc…"
Based on the last part of this, are we safe to consider that all common Kakis, even non-astringent types, are long term hardy Zone 8 and above? I’m 8b in East Texas, lowest has ever been recorded was -2F, and that was a low peak that only lasted part of a night.
I’m zone 6b and I have a Chocolate I never protect over winter that so far has gotten zero frost damage for 4-5 years now. I am not sure how it fared this winter yet… I hope it’s fine, but we got colder than usual. I had just bought more kaki varieties to experiment with so I hope it pulls through!
I’d be more concerned about Kaki Sudden Death Syndrome than cold hardiness in your zone. I’ve grown dozens of kaki trees in what is now considered Zone 8a in North Carolina for the past 13 years, and I’ve never lost a kaki tree due to low temps and rarely see any dieback from the frequent late freezes in spring either. The lowest I’ve ever recorded at my home during that time was 4 deg F. But I know you had a kaki-killing polar vortex in TX a few years back, so the risk is always there that you’ll get a significantly colder-than-average winter. I lose an average of a kaki tree each year to KSDS, so in my experience that is the most significant threat to your kaki trees. Fortunately, kakis grow relatively quickly and are precocious compared to many other fruit trees. I replace the ones I’ve lost to KSDS, and I’ve generally been avoiding replanting the same varieties that have succumbed to that disease in the hopes that other varieties have more resistance to it.
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Which varieties did die for you? Interesting topic.
Regarding the polar vortex, there are reports here of Fuyus surviving it, so it’s also not a guaranteed death sentence, especially if I can get to protect the trunks a bit…
What have been your lowest temps?
I remember reading some research that looked at variability in the cold hardiness of kaki buds over the course of the winter. The key takeaway was that buds were MUCH more hardy during the depths of dormancy (e.g., Jan) than earlier (e.g., Nov) or later (e.g., March). The implication was that a typical Kaki persimmon tree might survive -5 F or even -10 F in January but be killed by +15 F in March.
Of course, this variability is not driven by calendar dates but by related temperatures. Risk is somewhat low when temperatures are consistently low. The worst case scenario is a period of unseasonably warmish temps (e.g., 50-60 for a week in Feb) followed by cold temps. The USDA Zones are a guide to winter low temps but they tell us nothing about volatility of temperatures. So I’d be reluctant to give any assurances regarding what’s “long term hardy” in any zone. It all depends on context.
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So as not to derail this thread, here’s what I posted on another thread about KSDS: Kaki sudden death syndrome -- help? - #35 by ncdabbler
I brought up the polar vortex in TX just to make the point that the growing zone isn’t everything. Even if on average you have marginally warmer winters than I do, an exceptional storm can still cause significant damage to your kakis even if it doesn’t kill them outright. But the bigger risk in my opinion is something like KSDS that always eventually leads to death within a year or two in my experience.