that was the problem im having with chocolate and coffeecake. my trees are potted so they have smaller fruit than in ground. im trying coffee cake without chocolate as pollinator to see if it will be seedless but unfortunately the heatwave we had this year made all my persimmons dropped. im still thinking of adding hykume someday.
Coffeecake is fairly large in the ground for me despite a heavy crop.
3 Likes
Is it American or kaki?
I have no clue. It did have a tiny bit of astringency.
It looks like D. Virginiana or Hybrid to me. ( a quarter coin next to the fruit would help to determine the size )
I was small, a size of a Prok.
Hey Drew, I did not eat it yet. It still is a little hard, so I’m going to let it sit for a bit. I guess it has to be coffee cake as it does not look like your chocolate persimmon.
1 Like
Maybe 100-46.
1 Like
I never ended up getting Morris Burton. I ended up concentrating mostly on hybrids instead.
I grafted quite a few of those varieties such as 100-46, H118, etc. a couple of years ago but thought those grafts did not take. This one has survived.
The size of my fruit was a bit smaller than your 100-46 but this was the first year and it had some bug damage. Hopefully more will set fruit next year.
3 Likes
Per requests from my friends @PharmerDrewee and @mamuang as well as general questions by others, I thought it might be helpful if I post some photos to show what my persimmon trees look like as well as some of the fruit I got this year. Keep in mind that I’m far from an expert on persimmons or anything else - but I can at least show you my trees and fruits and perhaps it will be helpful to someone…
I’ll start with a photo of some of the varieties I harvested this year as well as an explanation of what you see.
So, the large fruits in the top row are all Fuyu. The two on each end were left on the tree until competely soft, while the one in the middle is still in the hard-but-ripe stage/
The second row are all Saijo. As you can see, they are pretty small. TO be clear, mine are smaller this year than usual. We had a fairly severe drought in late summer and I’m sure that affected the size. They also came from a very large tree that was covered (I’ve never thinned persimmons- curious if you guys ever do??)
The bottom row is Nakita’s gift (and the $1 bill for scale). Several of you seemed surprised when I said my Nakita’s Gift was slightly larger than my Saijos, so I’m guessing that is unusual. But you can see from the pics that it was true. But again, I honestly think its that my Saijos were small, not that my Nakita’s G were large. I got a few Saijos from some 4th year trees and they were slightly larger than my Nakitas.
Same photo as above but I turned most fruit over to show other side:
OK, what you see in the photo below is just the inside of 3 persimmons:
I the above photos, on the left is Fuyu, then Nakita’s Gift, then Saijo… I like them in reverse order.
Below is just another view of the same layout shown above but from a different angle
The sad thing is my little displays are missing 2 varieties I got to pick and eat this year but which were all gone by the time of the photos. They were Meader and Chocolate. I wasn’t a big fan of Meader but like chocolate a lot.
OK, here are my trees!
I’m going to start with my sad- almost embarassing- Chocolate “tree”. But before you make too much fun, let me explain what’s going on. This tree was another Asian Persimmon for about 3 years until the grafted top was froxen to death but the large rootstock/trunk remained. So 2 years ago I grafted 2 pieces of Chocolate onto the top. One was lined up with the main trunk was certainly intended to become the new tree. The other one was sort of an afterthought.backup and I grafted it to a badly curved, quite small but upward growing limb. Both lived for a year and then the main graft died (my fault, wind got it due to insufficient bracing). So you don’t need to tell me that this isn’t an ideal graft in terms of location, shape, size, etc. But before you get too hard on me, know this: That sad little "tree: gave me 4 nice Chocolate Persimmons this year!! YEAH! Also, if you look much at the photo, you can tell that almost all the growth is still from the original rootstock. I left more limbs than I should have because it wasn’t even clear that my little graft could keep the trunk/rootstock alive. Now that it did I’ll prune most or all of the other rootstock limbs away. To help explain what you are seeing, I’ll also post photos focusing in on the actual graft (which is hard to tell now)
So, photo above shows whole tree but only 1 limb is the grafted Chocolate
Below is the same tree as above with more attention to the grafted Chocolate section. If you look at the 2 limbs that go up parallel to each other, its the one one on the right which goes up and curves right then goes up. Yes, its not a good shape to become a whole tree but time will tell. Remember, I didn’t plan it to be the new top. You can see where my intended top was as it has been cut off and was a much better candidate for good, strong future tree
Finally, here is just a close up of the actual graft point on the same chocolate tree. You can barely see a knot now.
One final photo of my sad Chocolate tree creation. Here is a shovel to give some scale:
OK, next is my favorite- my large Saijo Tree. This tree is 8 years old and VERY healthy! I’m going to post 3 photos showing different views. There is a 6 foot ladder AND a 10 foot fruit picker standing up beside it to help size the tree which I’d put at around 18 feet now.
Below is the same Saijo but taken of the opposite side. This side faces north and is much thinner.
Finally, below here is just a simply photo of the top of this tree. Clearly it was loaded, but even with a ladder and a 10 foot picker it was extremely hard to harvest these guys. No reason to ever let it get taller and I may take 3 feet off. Still, its a nice photo I thought: The color and beauty is amazing!
Below are 2 pics of Saijo’s on the tree. I hope future readers can see these to help them recognize the difference in a ripe Saijo and an almost ripe one. The ripe ones are darker orange and a bit translucent and totally soft. The almost ripe ones are lighter orange/yellowish, hard, and often have ridges. THey can and usually do go from the unripe stage to the ripe stage, color, and softness within 24 =hours. However, they can and do hold the hard, yellow, ridge look for as much as 7-10 days before suddenly ripening completely in 24 hrs.
Next is a photo of ANOTHER Saijo. This one is the same story as above; the original top (Hachiya) froze out one winter but the rootstock (American I presume) survived and I grafted to it. It has a bad curve in the lower trunk as well, but its gradually been straightening itself over the years. Whether it will eventually be a fatal flaw I do not know. In spite of that, I’m really proud of this tree for whatever reason. Its vigorous, strong, fast growing, hand grafted, and produced a lot of fruit this year. This was its 4th year and first fruit.
The next tree is a Fuyu. This one is interesting to me because it is only 1 year younger than my tall Saijo, yet is much more of a bush - wider and shorter than Saijo. I have NOT pruned it to be that way, I rarely and barely prune my persimmons. I don’t know it the tall, thin shape is customary for Sajo or if the short, fat shape is typical for Fuyu- but that is what I get. My other Saijos also seem taller and thinner than Fuyu but they are too young to know for sure. Again, here is Fuyu.:
Also same Fuyu. This is other side of tree (shovel was moved)
This is my 3rd Saijo. It is 4 years old and was bought from raintree as a full tree. Notice it is much smaller than the 4 year old Saijo that I grafted. But that is to be expected because I grafted mine onto a rootstock that was 2-3 years old and therefore well established in that spot, whereas this saijo was just a bare root tree 4 years ago. Still, its making a really nice tree that I’m proud of. 3 Saijo trees are a LOT for 1 guy…but I love them soooo much!
THe last tree I will show is my Nakita’s Gift. I believe its 4 years old (too dark to go check tag!). It was a very slow grower for first 2 years but did well this year. This is first fruit year, too.
Below is another view of Nakita;s G. It was first year to fruit but it had a LOT (many had already been picked by this pic time). THey aren’t as good as Saijos to my tastes, but are a close 2nd.
Hope this little photo gallery will help someone- or at least you;ll enjoy seeing my trees and fruit.
BTW, @chingchungly , the reason I was sort of “defending” my Saijo’s as being Saijos is that Drew had asked about the ripening dates being somewhat different than he expected and also asked about why mine didn’t seem to have the ridges like his do. Also, both Drew and Tippy seemed surprised when I said my Saijos were slightly smaller than my Nakita’s. Don’t get me wrong…I absolutely invite those kinds of questions and MANY such questions in the past have alerted me to the fact that I did have mislabeled trees. But for the reasons I already stated, I’m almost certain in this case all my Saijo’s are just that.
30 Likes
Thanks, Kevin. It was nice to see your persimmon trees. You have so much space. If it were I, I could put a couple hundreds of trees in there. 
Surprisingly, Saijo is quite small. It’s nice of you to show the before ripened and the ripened Saijo to show how those ridges disappeared.
5 Likes
Thank you so much for taking the time to write your thoughtful post, and show us your lush trees, and peaceful sky. Nature isn’t beautiful all the time, but your quirky trees with their bent trunks look like actual trees and not like those overly pruned and shaped ones we spend our time battling. They have character especially with their brightly colored fruit. There’s something to be said about orange orbs hanging among glossy, deep green leaves.
I appreciate you showing the comparison between your various persimmons. They make my mouth water and worsen my impatience as I continue to wait for my fruit to soften on the trees. It’s also nice to see you demonstrate how the ridges on Saijo fade when they soften.
8 Likes
Thanks Tippy! And I need to hear you say that because I often don’t count my blessings enough. Having plenty of space really makes things fun. Just imagine what I might someday do if I decide to move over to my new 26 acres! haha. In case you are wondering, my trees are spaced 18 feet apart in the rows, and my rows are 20 feet apart. That is for my whole orchard. What is crazy about this- and I know you won’t feel sorry for me 
(because of you having to make do with far less space. is that in some cases I still run out of room!!! Specifically, with peach trees. I have several peach trees that have grown so much that I can no longer mow between them. They are supposed to all be semi-drawf but surely when some peach trees outgrow 18 x 20 spacing they must be full size? Or maybe I am just really lazy/bad about pruning for size! Either way, its not a big problem.
And yes, I like the ridged Saijo examples. Some saijos do manage to retain the ridges after ripening, but they are less pronounced. I forget right now if you have Saijo or not?
1 Like
Thanks Drew, for taking time to read and look at my photos. I wish I’d got to include my Meader and Chocolate fruit in the fruit photos but they were gone by that time.
You have a very polite way of saying my trees look a bit unshapely! haha. Yes, no one will ever accuse most of my persimmon trees as being too uniform or perfectly shaped! haha. But I know what you mean and I appreciate it. Also, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to notice that over time, a lot of the bends and crooks that you would think would lead to eventual failure often straighten themselves out. Certainly not always and I’d never advocate grafting to odd limbs like in the very first photo I posted (the grafted chocolate), sometimes it works out. Life finds a way.
Your comments about the look of the orange orbs hanging in the glossy deep green leaves is dead on. That photo I posted above that only shows the top section of my loaded Saijo is just an amazingly beautiful site to me. It looks just like some Japanese artwork I have seen of persimmon trees with fruit. Just amazing.
BTW…one thing that I don’t seem to get that others, including you if I recall, seem to get is great fall colors. I’ve never gotten much of that at all. Mine seem to stay all green until frost, then fall off soon after. Interesting.
4 Likes
JustPeachy, Morris Burton is usually pretty stingy with the crop, but late freezes the last few years have really hurt its production. I had a small crop of smallish fruit, but the taste was good. I think MB tastes better than my Yates, but Yates does produce some huge fruits - for American persimmon standards.
1 Like
My Morris Burton looks healthy but it will be a few years before I get any fruit.
Anyone seen a D. virginiana cultivar with fruit this small (niabell grapes in the background for scale)? These are from an estate of an acquaintance that has since past away. We know these were nursery plantings from around 2008. I think the small one might have been a labeled male persimmon, but I don’t think they should be producing female flowers? I know some fruiting persimmon produce some male flowers on a rare occasion. Can the reverse ever happen? Could the larger ones be Geneva Long (they do get a bit larger and slightly more oblong before they ripen and shriven a bit)?
8 Likes