I’ve seen some good advice around here on when is the ideal time to pick persimmons, though I’m looking for more of an algorithm for my imperfect growing situation
I live in the Willamette Valley of the PNW where summers are relatively short, and even early-ish fruiting persimmon cultivars often struggle to tree-ripen. (I’m growing Nikita’s Gift, Saijo, Early Fuyu, and Prairie Star).
I understand what a ripe persimmon looks like, but I’m trying to figure out at which point I should cut my losses, harvest everything, and counter ripen them. I presume I should harvest everything before the first frost, though around here, temperatures can smolder in the 40s and 50s for weeks with virtually no sunshine before it actually freezes… will the fruit quality noticeably improve by tree ripening in this weather?
Should I be paying attention to the high temperatures in the forecast? The lows? Whether or not there’s sunshine in the forecast? Whether or not the tree has dropped its leaves? Something else?
At this point, most of my fruit is mostly orange-ish; my Saijo is probably the least ripe with a few of the fruit still partly green (though most show little to no green).
This is my first year where I hope to get a decent harvest off a couple of my trees. The neighborhood has plenty of crows and a non-zero population of raccoons that would be happy to relieve me of my fruit – I don’t want to leave the fruit out any longer than I have to, though obviously I want maximum attainable fruit quality as well.
We pretty much only grow American persimmons, and your Prairie Star looks ripe to me. But really, I usually wait until they’re a bit wrinkly, or about to become wrinkly. In KS, some varieties of persimmons persist on the tree well into late fall/winter. The frost doesn’t hurt them at all. But yes, picking them before the critters do seems important. (Sorry for that not very informative answer).
I found that the Saijos that I finished ripening indoors tasted better to me than the completely soft tree ripened ones. They still had some firmness when I ate them, not completely mushy,
I let them stay on the tree as long as it doesn’t freeze.
IMO none of your persimmons look optimally ripe. They will ripen indoors for sure. But I prefer tree ripened.
Here is H118 below from about 10 days ago. I don’t believe it was optimally ripe then. Now they are translucent and ripe.
I don’t know what’s optimal based on any scientific evidence; I can only tell you what I do.
My Americans ripen in late Sept / early October so there’s no major issue.
Many of my Saijos ripen on the tree in October; most are half-ripe (the bottom half) by late October / early November. My other Kakis and my Hybrids get seriously orange by late October. The Kakis are still firm; the Hybrids are half-ripe (bottom half), much like the Saijos.
Here’s what I do: I figure out when there’s gonna be a freeze, and I pick the fruit before. But if it’s October / November and there’s a two-week forecast with no freeze but also no daytime temps >50 F, I’ll pick the fruit anyway. My assumption is that a freeze is bad and persistent unrelenting cold is probably bad too. But it’s all guesswork.
Thanks, everyone for sharing your experiences and insight. @ramv, do your astringent kakis ever tree-ripen in your area?
Last year I had a considerable range in quality in my persimmons – from delicious to meh – and I wasn’t sure if it was due to how much time they ripened outside vs. inside, something intrinsic to the fruit itself (perhaps more sun exposure, more dedicated leaves/fruit, etc.), or just my young trees being fickle.
I picked my fuyu this week in Portland. I usually wait until the squirrels figure them out and start carrying them off even if they aren’t perfectly tree ripened. I try to keep as long as I can on the tree as a trap crop to distract away from my goldrush apples.
Good call with the trap crop… I just need to plant something I don’t like as much as persimmons (or maybe that I like better then persimmons) that ripen at the same time
Thankfully, the squirrels haven’t yet (re)discovered my persimmons (though they took a single bite out of 30 or 40 of them a couple months ago ). I’m definitely keeping an eye out.
My trees are losing leaves fast, though, so I’m sure the squirrels are going to be on my case any minute now…
In my experience, they can appear to be ripe but still very hard and unpalatable. I’ve learned to ignore the weather. They are not pit or pome fruits. Their high percentage of starch provides them with extra durability. I’m expecting this year’s crop in January. As for pests, well, they’ve learned to look elsewhere.
This year I’ve knocked back their population around here somewhat with nearly constant trapping, though the population density here is high (multiple neighbors dispense peanuts and other food to the local squirrels, rats, and crows). Any voids in their distribution throughout the neighborhood are nearly immediately filled in.
@Richard , I’ve read your other posts detailing your Fruit Knox setup with considerable interest - I like an elegant, well-engineered solution. I’m just starting to get decent production from some of my trees and (as I mentioned above) pest pressure is very high - I may have to take a page from your book in the upcoming year or two.
My saijos were getting eaten by squirrels when they were just shy of fully tree ripe. So i picked all of them one day to ripen on the counter. Some still had some greenish tint. They all ripened up perfectly on the counterc and the flavor was awesome.
). I’m definitely keeping an eye out.
