Holy moly.
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Will they have seeds? I have a tree but hasn’t yet fruited. I’ve never tried one. Let’s see the inside when you open one!
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Can I have the insides after he is done looking at them?
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While I’ve been away from the site for a while, I really enjoyed seeing and reading about everyone’s persimmons tonight. Its been a great persimmon year here at my place. For the first time in the 5-6 years I’ve been harvesting persimmons, I finally had more Saijo’s than I could fresh eat! Took me 3 trees to get there and you’d be shocked how many of my beloved Saijo’s I can eat in a day, but I got more than I could eat and so I started drying them.
I have what is probably a very strange way that I dry my Saijo’s. I actually take them after they are fully soft, then pluck the top off and squeeze the other end of the fruit and the soft flesh just sort of plops out into a pile on my drying tray. By the time they finish drying they are really more like thick fruit leather than a real individual dried fruit piece. But the taste is absolutely out of this world. It is absolutely like the sweetest, best candy ever. Its quite firm but not hard. Just great. Its a bit wasteful as you do leave some of the fruit flesh behind in the skin, but to me it worth it to get this dried candy without the peeling in it. I’ve tried cutting them into sections with the peeling on but for me the peeling hurts the taste since it has no sweetness. Yes, this is a very long way from the Japanese Hoshigaki method, but it only takes one night in the drier and the end product never molds and is delightful to me.
I also got my first Nakita’s gift this year. I was very happy with them. They were slightly larger than my Saijo and pretty comparable in taste. That being said, I didn’t like them quite as much as Saijo but they are a close second.
I also got to try my first Meader this year. I wasn’t nearly as happy with them - personally. To me, they were very close to wild persimmons that grow around here except about 2-3 times larger. They also weren’t quite as “stringy” in the flesh but did have that stringy character still, and I’m not a big fan of that. Still, it was a productive tree and I’ll certainly keep it.
My 8 year old Fuyu Tree is just loaded this year. While I know many- if not most of you- prefer non-astringent, I’m not much of a fan of the crisp/firm texture. And if left to get fully soft, they just sort of go to mush and I don’t love them that way either. Yes, Saijo’s get soft but they retain that jello-like firmness that is perfect for me. I also love that my Saijo’s ripen daily over more than a month. So basically every single day when I come home from work I can go out and pick the 3-6 fruits that ripened since the same time the day before.
I should have taken photos of all my persimmons, but I only took one of my Saijo harvests. This was 2 days worth from my 3 trees. 1 tree is an 8 year old, 18 footer and the other 2 are 7 foot and fruited for the first time this year- but still produced a nice crop. Sadly, the birds like to sample them too.
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Those are huge Drew! Enjoy!
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@murky Some are pollinated and some aren’t. I’m really not sure of a reliable way to tell before cutting them open. It self pollinated as I observed a couple branches with male flowers, and none of the pollinator varieties I planted had any males this past spring. I plan on removing the astringency artificially with alcohol, then waiting for the fruit to slightly soften. They are definitely mature fruit as the seeds are dark brown now.
@disc4tw These are probably around the size of a larger supermarket Fuyu like that fancier grade where you’d pay a few more dollars for a box. I’m very satisfied with its productivity. The fruit grows in clusters.
@thecityman I’m amazed that you’ve had ripe Saijo starting so early. Most of mine aren’t even fully yellow. Where did you originally buy your trees from? Mine also have these ridges while yours look smooth.
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That looks outstanding. Thank you.
Also, that’s the first first hand report I’ve heard of male flowers on Nishamura Wase. I see it recommended to go with Chocolate, but conjecture was that Chocolate provided the male flowers for both itself and Coffeecake.
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Enjoyed your report, Drew. I’m still excited for you to try Saijo and was hoping by now you would have, but at least it looks like you are on your way. My Saijo were earlier this year by a couple weeks. While I usually get an odd ripe one in late September, I’d really call the ripening window here as being in mid Oct to early November on average. I am 99.9% certain these are indeed Saijos, I guess its just me being a lot further south that makes mine so much earlier than yours. And YES…almost all of my saijos actually do have ridges you asked about until they ripen. What you are going to find is that those ridges pretty much disappear the day that the Saijo fully ripens (with about 75% of fruit- about 25% keep the ridges). The ridges stay in place as the fruit turn yellowish-orange, though. They stay yellowish-Orange and keep the ridges you mention and stay like that for about 7-10 days. Then almost overnight they go from being hard and ridged to going soft and losing the ridges. It will make sense when you see it - its like when they go fully ripe and soft the fruit just sort of looses its ridges shape and becomes soft and smooth. It’s too soft to hold the ridge shape then-its just like a plastic bag filled with Jell-o. Its very apparent when they are ripe. They go from being a yellowish orange to being a translucent solid orange color, and they get very soft all at once.
I bought my original Saijo from Edible Landscaping. Then a few years later I bought the second one from Raintree. THey both produce exactly the same fruit which is why I’m so confident they are Saijo. My third one that produced this year was a graft I did onto an unknown rootstock that survived one winter when the Hachiya top died from winter kill.
hope this helps. BTW…I also got some chocolates this year from a Chocolate I grafted onto an American 3 years ago. I got the wood from a Chocolate Persimmon tree I bought at a big box store. Sadly, that tree put out more and more male flowers each year for 5 years until it finally produced nothing but male flowers. This grafted tree that produced for the first time this year had only one small branch of male flowers, but in 5 years it may go full male also. They are odd in that way.
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Kevin
Glad to see you back.
Could you please post pic of your Nikita’s Gift esp. ifyou can put it side by side with Saijo. Your description that NG is “slightly larger than Saijo” has peaks my interest.
My NG is quite small. The pics of your Saijo appeared to be larger than my NG.
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This is all of my harvest (IKKJ) from my three yr old tree. I definitely saw many more tiny buds at the beginning of the season. Could the few late frosts have caused all but these 3 to drop from early on? They’re much smaller this year also.
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That makes a lot of sense, Kevin. I guess if they are soft then they don’t hold their shape together anymore. Glad to see you getting an abundant harvest too. Their color is really beautiful.
How large are your Chocolate compared to Saijo?
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@Sheri – Your climate is not too different from mine. Judging by color, I’d estimate that your trees are 1-2 weeks ahead of mine.
I’ve got 3 IKKJ that I planted in spring 2015. The 1st small crop – just a few fruits – came in the 5th season in 2019. Then in 2020, I picked 25-30. This year it looks like there’s >50. I expect to pick them, as last year, in ~2 weeks (early Nov).
So based on my limited experience, I’d say be patient. The crop will get bigger.
Also I’d note that in every recent year, the trees initially set WAY more fruits than they ultimately ripened. There is a heavy fruit drop in late spring. As a rough guess, I’d say that this year 5x as many fruits dropped as held. Weather was benign so I interpret this early fruit drop to be a natural process in which the tree adjusts the crop size to something suitable. I was thankful for this drop because it meant that I wouldn’t have to thin the trees manually.
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I have mine in a large ~20 gallon container, not sure if that makes any difference. I’ll definitely be patient and see what happens in the coming years.
When I mentioned I saw alot of tiny buds, that wasn’t fruit set stage. They were at the teeny tiny green stage shown below (please correct me if I’m mistaken and those are not actually fruit buds 
), but in the end only 5 set fruit, and 3 stayed on till now.
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Did it get a head start indoors? That’s the only way I can imagine cold weather adversely impacting this year.
Your potted tree looks much smaller than my in-grounds at the same stage, so that may reduce yields.
I had moved it into my unheated garage for the winter. That wouldn’t be considered indoors, right?
Since it’s potted instead of in-ground I didn’t want to leave it out in the winter winds/snow, but maybe I should leave it out this year? 
It is indoors but whether it’s a head start depends on temperature. My own garage gets warm enough in March/April (50ish) that fig trees have begun to leaf out by the time I put them outside in late April / early May. So they can be vulnerable to late spring cold.
You’d really have to check whether (a) the state of the tree when you moved it outside, and (b) the low temperatures after you moved it outside could have combined to cause damage. In-ground trees would likely get a later start and might be less vulnerable.
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They were in late bud break stage (is that the right term?) a few started to leaf out, a when I moved it out. Probably should move it out in late february/early march so the outdoors cold keeps it dormant longer.
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I’m no expert on persimmons, so I’m extrapolating from stored figs. The idea is right, but I’d be worried about moving trees that have never been in freezing conditions into a frequent freeze.
Maybe you could pick a week in late March / early April when outside low temps are gonna be ~25-30 F so the cold stress is not too severe.
Yea I’ll try that, late March/early April. I moved it mid-April this year. And once it gets too big for the garage I’ll have to hope it doesn’t die from being out the whole winter.
Thanks for you time responding @jrd51.
Cold is a risk. But FWIW, mine had serious damage only in the 1st winter. If your zone lives up to its billing, your tree should be OK.