I am attempting to cold stratify Persimmon seeds for the first time. I have read that many people place them in moist Peat moss and into a ziploc bag which is stored in the refrigerator. I have done this many years ago with apple seed and a paper towel but never did anything after they started to grow roots. Any suggestions are much appreciated! Would love to see pictures as I learn best by seeing and doing! Thank you in advance.
I just washed all my persimmon seeds with dish washing soap and dried them with a paper towel and placed them in a sandwich ziplock bag and stored them in the refrigerator. Planted them out in pots in late April.
Can the seeds not be stored at room temp for multiple years like other members of the Ebenaceae family?
I successfully sprouted sapodilla seeds that were stored for atleast 5 years.
In the past, I’ve always used the moist sphagnum peat moss method but this year I’m just cleaning them and keeping them moist in the bags. Probably will take them out of the mini fridge once or twice this winter to rinse them to keep mold from forming. Moist paper towels are a hassle as they always form mold quickly and have constantly keep charging them.
You can use your fingers and flick a little water inside the ziplock before you close it and it will be fine. Just check for molds montly. If you see molds then re wash the seeds with dish washing soap again. I usually put them in the bag and call it done until April.
Here’s some of the ones I’m stratifying this year. These are the open pollination ones. I have a handful of manual crosses in some other bags I hope to grow out - too bad land has gotten so expensive.
wow that’s a lot of seeds. so you just throw them in the refrigerator for a few months and hope they start to germinate? You have a good success rate with these? Any successful pics from the spring?
Unlike apple seeds which start rooting in the refrigerator Persimmons wait till they get warmed up to germinate.
So when you are ready for them to start growing take them out of the refrigerator.
Success rate for a well formed seed is close to 100% in my experience. I sprout mine indoors. Most of these are headed to the INFGA spring scion swap for people to use as rootstocks or grow out since they are cultivar sourced.
I’ve grown kaki persimmons from seeds for years. They are super easy: they will grow right at room temp as well as after being in the fridge.
Often I will stick seeds of a particularly good persimmon into a pot of my indoor plants in the fall, and by April I have baby persimmon trees growing in my indoor pots.
I also throw persimmon seeds into my compost outdoors (where it freezes in my zone 7), and have numerous baby trees come up around my mulched plants, suggesting to me that persimmon seeds find a way to grow under a variety of conditions.
