Which graft did you use?
@ncdabbler – Great looking dried fruit. I’m gonna try it on my Jiros.
Question. Your Tecumseh fruits looks to me like Jiro/Fuyu but that would imply non-astringent. You taste some astringency. So what type of Asian is Tecumseh? What other names are similar? Thx.
@jrd51 - Tecumseh is a pollination constant astringent (PCA) type of Diospyros kaki, thought to be a seedling of Great Wall, another PCA type of similar appearance. Tecumseh’s most distinctive characteristics are late ripening fruit and beautiful red fall foliage.
You’re right that the shape is similar to that of Jiro/Fuyu (pollination constant non-astringent or PCNA types), but PCA kakis come in many different shapes and sizes. Some are more acorn-shaped like Saijo, Hachiya or Giombo. Others are more beefsteak tomato-shaped like Tecumseh, Eureka, Sheng, etc… I wouldn’t be able to distinguish between a PCA and PCNA type solely by shape. Most PCNA types have a similar shape in my experience, but some PCA types have a comparable shape to the typical PCNA shape. Tecumseh is smaller than any of my PCNA types and also has more pronounced lobes.
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thx
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@ncdabbler – I feel like Columbo . . . One more thing! What is your experience with Sheng?
My challenge here (Z6B/7A RI) is to find persimmons that are tasty, cold-hardy, and early-ripening. [As you know, I have the same challenge with figs.]. My IKKJ trees meet those objectives, and I assume that other Jiro/Fuyu/Gosho varieties will taste basically the same. So, I don’t see any reason to try other PCNA Asians. While some seeded varieties would bring different tastes, I want to avoid introducing seeds here to the Americans and Hybrids, so I’m going to avoid the PVA and PVNA varieties. That leaves the PCAs.
To be successful here, any PCA needs to fully ripen – lose its astringency – before weather turns seriously cold. I don’t think Hachiya, Saiyo, Gionbo or similar will succeed. On the other hand, I have to believe that there’re some varieties from China or Korea that will work. Great Wall seems not quite cold hardy enough; Tecumseh seems late. But descriptions of Sheng suggest that it might fit the bill – early ripening and cold enough for Z6.
So what have you observed?
@jrd51, I’ve grown Sheng for 5 or 6 years now. It has flowered and had a few immature fruit on it, but they’ve always dropped when golfball size or smaller. My Sheng tree has been a much slower grower than my other kaki trees and developed some kind of gall at the base of the tree. Here’s my recent post about it with pictures:
I thought it might be a graft incompatibility or maybe some kind of borer, but I don’t see any frass or holes that would suggest that. One respondee to my earlier post suggested that it looks more like crown gall or a fungal issue, and I now think that’s probably right. I’m planning on removing the tree entirely and burning it.
So I can’t recommend Sheng from my own experience, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it in your location based on my single sickly tree in NC. It might be that it wasn’t even really Sheng since at least one other kaki tree I got from the same nursery was mislabeled - (a PCNA Izu that turned out to be a PCA type indistinguishable from my Giombo).
I wouldn’t rule out PVA kakis from your search. My understanding is that they can’t be pollinated by D. virginiana or hybrids, and that’s definitely been my experience growing PVAs in amongst many wild and named D. virginiana trees and hybrids. As long as you avoid kaki cultivars that are known to produce male flowers, you should be able to keep yours seedless. My understanding is that many if not most of those potential pollinators are PVNA types like Chocolate, Maru, etc…
Giboshi/Smith’s Best is one of my earliest kakis and one of my favorites for taste, even though I’ve only ever tasted it unpollinated. It’s never been pollinated by any of my other kakis, including other PVAs.
Miss Kim is also a beautiful and early PVA (I think).
I haven’t been able to figure out from the articles I’ve read if Picudo/Costata is PCA or PVA (I’ve seen conflicting info), and I don’t grow it yet, but you can see by @PharmerDrewee 's photos at the beginning of this thread how productive it’s been for him in PA. Saijo has done well for him too.
I would say those three - Giboshi/Smith’s Best, Miss Kim and Picudo/Costata would be well worth trialing.
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A poster, maybe Ram near Seattle, WA, has said here that Saijo picked with even a little color, will fully turn orange, soften, sweeten, and ripen well inside. Maybe better than if left on the tree.
And why do you assume all of the PCNA will perform the same? I have hopes that an earlier ripening variety like Izu will do better in a short season. Presumably maturing while there is still some heat.
@murky – My assumption is that Saijo (and most other PCAs) would be killed by cold here. That’s why I focused on Sheng. Meanwhile, my approach to IKKJ is just like Ram’s with Saijo except the IKKJ fruits get quite orange by late October / early November. They are edible off the tree, but then (as you wrote) they “turn [more] orange, soften, sweeten, and ripen well inside.” So it’s not obvious to me that I need an earlier PCNA. On the other hand, I have become paranoid about astringency so I want the earliest ripening PCAs (or Americans).
I’m not assuming that all of the PCNA will perform exactly the same, but the genomic analysis makes them seem pretty similar. I’ll let someone else prove that some other PCNA is different enough to be worth growing – and cold hardy enough to survive here…
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I’m south of you, but still the same 6b/7a. I have Saijo, Giombo, 3-Hachiya, 4-Fuyu, Jiro, Wase Fuyu, and one other fuyu type. None have died yet, even when they were twigs. I wouldn’t advise buying bare root though.
@Robert – How far south? From comparing notes re figs, I know that areas of CT/NJ in the same zone can have a growing season 2-4 weeks longer.
Also, how long have you had the trees and what have the crops been like? IKKJ is my only Asian variety and people keep telling me that sooner or later they’ll be killed here. We haven’t had a “normal” winter in 3-4 years.
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Currently it is getting into the 20’s at night here. Many people still have their persimmons hanging on their trees. My trees are all different ages as they were all added over time and only a few are cropping. To me the astringents appear to be the faster growing. Many zone questionable things like figs suffer the most when they are young. They all do better after the first couple years. If your worried about short season, just focus on the earlier ripening varieties.
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Yeah, understood. Ideally the variety would also be late to break bud in spring. IKKJ has performed well enough on both counts.
My experience with figs is that if temperatures drop no lower than +5 F, an in-ground tree can survive here with only modest damage. But at 0 F or lower, the trees are killed to the ground. In my 10 years here, half of them had winter low temperatures below 0 F and as low as -7 F. The lesson is that 5 degrees can make all the difference.
I don’t want to invest years in a persimmon tree only to see it killed. So I’ll limit my search to varieties that are supposed to be hardy in Z6A (-5 to -10 F).
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Which American persimmons do you have? How many American persimmons are you planning on having?
Have you considered you might have a variant on the branch and graft it to a rootstock to see if its actually earlier which would be very interesting, maybe graft a later scion also so you could compare them side by side??
I didn’t realize how straight (or tall) they grew. My wild Virginia persimmons definitely aren’t that straight!
Tallest ones I’ve ever seen. They are competing with oaks, cypress, tulip trees, hickories and sweetgums for light …so they grew straight up with them. Not really sure how old they are. I’m guessing there close to 80ft tall.
@Barkslip – Not sure who you’re asking. My only American currently is Prok. I will graft H63A, Barbra’s Blush, Dollywood and maybe H 120. That list should look familiar.
That will be too many, but it’s all a big experiment and deer can eat what I don’t.
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Thank you. Yes, it was you I was asking, & great list.
Lol! I figured you’d approve. It’s basically your list of top picks. Thanks for the guidance in past posts.
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Lol, too, here. I had great list in quotes and then re-typed to put it in one sentence. So definitely we were thinking exactly the same thing! ha ha ha yo player!
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