Persimmons, 2019

I haven’t seen a thread about this year’s persimmon harvest yet, so figured I’d start one. How are your persimmons coming along this year? I’ve had Prok and 100-46 so far. Both are great persimmons, but Prok tends to more fully lose its astringency at an earlier stage than 100-46 does.

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Yates persimmons this week. More on tree. Yum!

1-IMG_8751

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@SMC_zone6
Tell us more about the 100-46
The astringency, …so is it as soft as a prok when ripe but still astringent?
How does the size compare to prok.
My 100-46 has not fruited yet, prok just finishing up here.
Ruby starting to ripen ( I like prok better)

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I think it just needs to ripen further to fully lose the astringency. Prok can be a little firmer and not have noticeable astringency. 100-46 is a little but squatter and less tall, so there’s not quite as much pulp per fruit, but they’re pretty close to the same size. My dad prefers the taste of 100-46 to Prok, he says it has more complexity. But they taste about the same to me.

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I’ve been eating these native to Cass County IL persimmons off and on for 11-days. 6-seeds in the smallest of these four. I suck on the seeds and it tastes great doing so and after 10 or 15 minutes most seeds are perfectly clean and you’ll find more yummy surprises inside your mouth soon after. Mouthwatering, yum. :yum:

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I almost think the pulp around the seeds is the best part. If the seeds weren’t such a pain for dealing with the fruit in bulk, I’d consider planting a male along with the self-fruiting varieties I’m after.

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I didn’t have any flowering males this year, but my Prok still had seeds. I think that’s because it comes from the Early Golden family of persimmons, which tend to produce some male flowers as well. So that might be something to keep in mind when choosing which American persimmons to plant.

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Interesting. I knew that was a possibility with Szukis, but I hadn’t heard of that with Prok. Good to know. Looking at your photos again, I think I can see the seed in Prok…

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Some of the Female that aren’t parthenocarpic (meaning seedless)

If they have 90 Chromosones
if you plant a Kentucky 60 Chromosone one

The off spring will be seedless

Of coarse If they have make, and female Flowers
I am just speaking of the ones that do not .

Good to know about those Varieties

I can explain the science behind that better
, bugt still trying to understand it better myself
(uneven number the Offspring abort )
(I can provide A link if you’d like.)

Here is a good resource for Botany Dictionary
http://botanydictionary.org/parthenocarpy.html

The development of an egg cell into an embryo without fertilization. This is usually due to defective meiosis, which results in an egg nucleus with an unreduced number of chromosomes, as is found in dandelions (Taraxacum). In some species, e.g. hawkweeds (Hieracium), the megaspore is replaced by a cell of the nucellus.

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By the way I found a single wild persimmon tree that was more reddish
they had seeds , but 2 Simmons near by the others where smaller , and no seeds
(edit from the same tree)

Do you think A male pollinated it which other tree’s where in the area
, or self pollinating
I sure do hope it is seedless, and plan to go get scion wood.

Here is a Link to explain the Sterile off spring
Scroll down a little to the picture
Look at the Horse Genetics , and the mules
explains it very well
the sperm, and the egg line up in a even number getting both from each side creates offspring
With the Mule Off spring they are sterile , It is uneven , so they do not line up correctly

https://www2.palomar.edu/users/warmstrong/hybrids1.htm

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H-118 is very good with no astringent.

MB 3 very juicy and sweet but on the small size

H-120 as good as H-118

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I think that’s the same as my “Prairie Star”. The fruit this year seem a little beaten up for some reason, maybe it was the hail storm a couple weeks ago.

But they are delicious. I’ve picked some before full color, which is difficult to gauge anyway this year, and they are small. I tried one the other day that was soft, but apparently hadn’t lost its astringency yet.

It was still delicious in the background, but the foreground was hard to bear. Had to pitch it.

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Why are you wearing this glove tony? Are you concerned about some skin allergies?

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I used the expired Nitrile non latex glove from our Anesthesia Dept. for gardening instead of throwing them away in the trash. Try not to be wasteful. :blush:

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Interesting, these are all seedless and all ripen at the same time?

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I picked a bunch more in today to let them ripen on the counter next to the bananas.

Tony

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image
Found this native persimmon today. I was impressed with its size!

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I don’t have any persimmons in the ground yet, but just picked up two trees from Edible Landscaping yesterday. The nursery is pretty far from me at 2.5-3 hours away, but I was headed the general direction to watch my daughter’s high school band at a marching band competition at JMU and couldn’t give up the chance to actually taste some persimmons beyond the non-astringent types I’ve gotten in stores. In case anyone is interested, they have their persimmon festival next weekend and you should be able to taste a whole bunch.

From reading reports here I was particularly interested in the American types and some hybrids - particularly Prok, Yates and Rosseyanka which I knew EL had and should be ripe to taste now. I was able to walk around with Michael, the owner, to see the mother trees and appreciate what mature trees will look like and taste some of the fruit. Their Prok is pretty much done now, but we found one nice one in the straw under their mother tree and it was really delicious - much better than the natives I’ve scavenged in our area, particularly since it was much bigger and had fewer seeds, but also since there was no hint of astringency at all and a nice rich taste. There was a hint of apricot, but sweeter/richer and not as tangy as a cot.

30 yards away was their Rosseyanka mother tree which I was still carrying a lot of fruit. Based on the later ripening it seemed like a good match with Prok for extended harvest. We found a ripe one still on the tree. Another delicious persimmon and I think I like it better than Prok. It almost had a little bit of spiciness to it - not hot spice, but like the spice flavor in spiced cookies or cakes. My only let down with it was that it was probably a bit smaller than the Prok, since it was the same diameter but not as elongated. I had been thinking the hybrids would be bigger than the improved native types. Oh well, still a great tasting fruit and a nice tree.

Their Yates mother tree is in a grouping of 3 of the American types and a very nice tree as well. For Yates, we actually had one of the fruits they had in a fridge, so it was colder than the others and not “fresh off the tree”. It was probably similar to Prok in taste, but it seemed a little later than Prok based on the tree still carrying fruit. Since I’d budgeted for 2 trees, I decided to get Prok and Rosseyanka, but they were all really good. I had very little time and would have loved to have spent more time tasting some others, but I had to get to the competition, so I picked out my 2 trees and hit the road. At that point Michael was busy with others, so a guy named George showed me the trees and helped me pick. Both of them were really knowledgable and are awesome resources if you get to visit the nursery. I went with 3-gallon trees to get them going faster and hopefully their larger size will help them survive if the deer get to them.

I’m thinking that since Prok is all native it should be a bigger tree if left unpruned, does that seem consistent with other people’s experiences with these varieties? Right now the Prok is a bit smaller… Prok on the left and Rosseyanka on the right.

I do apologize to all you persimmon people for not doing a better job of documenting this with pictures of the fruit and mother trees, which I would like to have just for my own reviewing as well. I was just rushing around so much I didn’t think of it. SMH.

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Our persimmons… :slightly_smiling_face:

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Our persimmons (cont.)… :slightly_smiling_face:

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