Am curious if anyone has had issue with sudden persimmon wilt.
I have just noticed one of my persimmon seedlings that has recently started pushing spring growth then the upper half of the plant wilted. New shoots have come out along the lower stem that seem fine, but all new growth on the branches of the upper plant have uniformly wilted. I see no evidence of any borers on the trunk. It is fairly well established, transplanted into my yard as a year old seedling in 2013 – so doubt it was merely a lack of water (watering didn´t help). It hasn´t done well in general, reached only a yard in height (at best) since being transplanted, which I put down to my cold climate. I don´t mind losing it so much, as others have done better. I do worry however it might be an issue that could spread to my other persimmons. I´ve cut it down to the seemingly health shoots lower down the trunk. Only thing on line that I´ve found is Cephalosporium diospyri, but I´m well out of native range of the persimmon. Any suggestions from other persimmon growers?
My experience is that persimmon wilt and die this time of yr because of freeze injury. My tree kept dying back for several yrs before I had to take it out. Now all that’s left is the root sprouts that have always come up as far as 30ft from the tree.
Thanks Steven!
It may well have been some sort of internal Winter freeze damage or stress. As mentioned, this particular seedling has not been vigorous. This is the reason I´ve chosen to go the way of seedlings instead purchasing grafted trees – so as to find a strain that will tolerate climate conditions here.
Several things can cause wilt of persimmons…
Bacteria…
S.D.S. ,…Sudden Death Syndrome. Xylella fastidiosa
Pseudomonas wilt
Fungi
Verticillium wilt
cephalosprium wilt
Borers
Persimmon agrilus ( a beetle )
Sannina uraceriformis ( a moth )
Likely other. Reasons too.
Many of these would be hard to I.D. For the home owner,
Symptoms can be similar , infection is internal, no good treatment.
Destroying infected stock likely best solution ?
A article about S.D.S.
Thank you for this. I finally understand what has been happening with persimmons and “sudden death syndrome.”
"X. fastidiosa was detected in all the samples from the planting in Telfair County, Georgia displaying the symptoms of “Sudden Death”. "
" The fact that the disease reduced a trial of 238 trees comprising 17 cultivars of persimmon to 22 trees within 5 years would indicate that this is a serious problem, and potentially a limiting factor in the development of persimmon as an alternative crop in the southeastern USA, particularly when X. fastidiosa is endemic to the region."
X. fastidiosa (an infections agent) is found in peaches and kills them the same way.
Yes it excludes growing Asian Persimmon in the SE USA on a large scale and is a risk even to small growers. The disease can usually be seen as “Black Streak” , black or grey streaks in the wood of twigs, sunken spots on bark sometimes, occasionally black veins in leaves. It can develop slowly or suddenly especially after a tree fruits at 6-8 feet tall. Small unhealthy leaves, buds that enlarge but don’t develop. Death back to the graft on grafted trees then sprouts below the graft. American persimmon is only lightly affected and the trees do well.
Not necessarily , sometimes the upper leaves will fall early and nothing is wrong in addition I don’t see any other signs and the upper stem looks OK.
Thanks for the response. I just did a scratch test today and they are still green.
Thank you for sharing this information and explaining the multitude of causes in detail.
I wanted to bump this post as a reminder of the dangers of grafting certain options in different parts of the country in the coming months.
kaki SDS is possibly it’s biggest challenge in southeastern states from everything I’ve read. The other unknown is ploidy differences for southern rootstock. This may not be an issue, just one implied due to the presence of these other causes in areas that happen to have southern trees.