I may have missed it, but I don’t think we have a thread for persimmon harvests/tasting yet. I know I’ve seen a bunch in other threads about Americans, hybrids, etc. but I really enjoyed reading through the one from last year with all the persimmon reports in an easy to find thread. So what are you harvesting and how do they taste?
My Prok are done and were better than I expected from the various comments about blandness. I’d eat a bunch more if I had them. 100-46 are about a week off for me on a fairly shaded little tree. Today I harvested my 2 Giboshi, which I hope are pollinated by a Chocolate about 15 feet away. It is supposed to be PVNA, but I’ll wait until they are soft since I just have the 2 of them and don’t want to risk it. I can’t wait to taste them and will report back when I do.
I’m looking forward to hearing about your Giboshi. That’s one I grafted this year. PVNA fruit at least from Nishimura Wase are probably my favorite of the Asian persimmons.
Your Saijo looks way ahead of mine. They’re barely coloring up here. It’ll be another month before any are ready. At least they’re abundant again this year.
Here’s the father of a lot of the seeds within what we see in my garden. Most flowers are male or perfect with only a few females. This early ripening astringent selection also goes dormant before all the other kaki I have. Some leaves are already turning red.
I have no Saijo this year and had barely any last year. This was after a bumper crop 2 years ago.
I’m getting disappointed by this large tree that won’t produce. I’ve added grafts of Mikatani Gosho and Gora Roman Kosh to it.
@ramv Ram, does it flower then drop the fruitlets, or no flowering at all? There are probably ways to remedy either situation if you like eating Saijo fruit.
You can try applying a fertilizer with a higher proportion of P relative to N and K like any generic bloom booster during the summer. Persimmons flower on new growth but I read that flower bud formation occurs the year prior within the dormant buds at the base of the leaves. This approach works for my trees so it might be worth trying to see if you get any positive results.
I haven’t fertilized my trees in a long time. I simply pile on leaves at their base and it turns into leaf mold. That seems to work for my other persimmons right next to it and I get bumper crops.
Is Saijo different from other persimmon trees in any way?
Persimmons are mysterious. I have 2 Saijo next to each other and the one consistently produces larger fruit even though their growth form is identical and the fruit taste identical. They even came from the same source.
I have read persimmons have a high incidence of bud sports. I also wonder about rootstock influence on fruit size. There’s so much genetic variation in the seedling rootstocks everyone is using; I’d be shocked if that didn’t influence things like fruit size, dormancy, vigor, etc.
