Beautiful. Those seem to be pretty nice sized for Saijo as well.
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I read that those are astringent until fully ripe.
Many of those do not look fully ripe to me… so… do they ripen well after harvisting ? Just sitting in a box with others for a while ? Or is there some other process you do to get them fully ripe.
With wild americans (my only experience so far) they need to be ripe color and quite soft before no astringency.
Is Saijo different ?
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In the trade, or in the wild?
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Thanks Walter. I heavily fertilize my trees which might help. They get plenty of an organic, generic tomato fertilizer, and crab/lobster shells whenever those are on the menu.
They will soften and become nonastringent at this stage indoors, and become fine fresh desserts. I plan on drying over half of them too. If you look carefully, 3 of the boxes have fruit with a “T” of wood at the top to facilitate being tied to strings. These are destined to dry in the wind.
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I just read an older post where you asked about when they were ripe… and cityman gave some details. Sounds like they will turn a darker orange and then eventually soften up… and when soft are ripe.
The way he described the taste… has me wanting to try one.
I would think that astringent asians… would fall somewhere between hybrids and non astringent asians on flavor. I could be wrong.
I will have (hybrids) Kassandra, Nakitas gift, JT02, Zima Khurma and hopefully Journey and Dar Sofiyivky at my new home location… and a few americans… have WS8-10 now and several wilds. Have to stop somewhere.
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@PharmerDrewee Wow. I didnt know saijo got that big. Nice harvest! My Saijo’s rootstock died and i lost it before i got to try the fruit.
@TNHunter i dont think its a saijo trait but kaki in general can ripen off the tree.
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My Saijo produced a large crop in 2021 (over 150) and since then hasn’t produced at all. It grows great and has become larger. But no fruit. I can understand alternate bearing but 2 years and barely any fruit!
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@ramv
For your climate, this is a good week to provide a standard dosage of Sul-Po-Mag under the tree, out past the drip line about a foot. It’s a once a year fall supplement.
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Thanks Richard. I will fertilize all my trees this weekend with sulpomag.
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In my opinion, any height difference is tied to growing conditions. They love heat. Northern persimmon can get very tall too… but then I haven’t tried growing a northern persimmon in southern conditions.
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I’ve never had a hybrid persimmon, but in my experience there is much more variation in taste between astringent kaki varieties than non-astringent ones (not counting the PVNA varieties which are a whole different ball game). Saijo is much better than Hachiya in my opinion. The worst variety I have tried is Tamopan, which was very bland. None of the Asian varieties have anything approaching the aroma of the American species though. It’s like comparing peaches with plums. Maybe some overlap in specific characteristics but resulting in completely different end products.
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I would agree. I have Saiju and its peak, its a sweet goo.
but Lehman’s Delight at its peak is a sweet goo that has that interesting flavor.
Not sure how to describe it, think some people call it a butterscotch/cinnamon/rum flavor.
I think it even has 2 flavors, one when its a larger fruit and more goo-ey (not sure if that means its pollinated as a good percentage of the time, there is a seed or 2 in the larger ones),
and the smaller ones are a bit more dried and jammy, and have this ‘caramelized’ flavor.
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I’ll go tell the 60C persimmon trees behind my house. All 7 are 40 to 60 feet tall and the largest is over a foot diameter. they grow a few more feet every year. No, I don’t harvest the persimmons. I can’t climb that high.
Hobilus, crossing 60 X 90 runs into a problem at pachytene pairing during cell division. Chromosomes have to pair up in order to replicate. Five sets of chromosomes can’t pair up. Crosses could still occur, for example, a decaploid (10 sets) would be able to pair up and divide.
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Doesn’t this only apply during meiosis? Chromosomes don’t pair up during mitosis so cell division should carry on as normal. Plenty of triploid plants exist and grow fine, they’re just not usually fertile.
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It depends. Some plants are tolerant of odd chromosome counts. Some have structures that only permit division when even numbers are present. Wheat is one I know is hexaploid and has a chromosome structure that only works when even. Watermelon is normally diploid but is tolerant of triploid. It is speculation on my part, but hexaploid persimmon has a very good chance of using a chromosome pairing structure similar to wheat. What evidence? Only one I can prove is that there is wide overlap of 60 and 90 chromosome persimmon yet I’ve never read or heard of a hybrid between them. There has to be a reason!
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Yes, there are some males like that in Nebraska, but I haven’t seen females like that, so you got me there on the females 
yeah, ditto. it may be that no one has bothered to look. i dont know enough about the mechanics, but i do understand though that recombination is often messy and all sorts of mishaps can prevent an otherwise theoretically possible cross from working out.
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Here’s most of my PCNA harvest this year.
Jin Yong
20th Century
Il Mok Jae Cha Ryang
Hana Fuyu-Not, the fruit are too small to be Hana Fuyu. Still nonastringent though. This tree will be replaced with something more productive and larger fruited.
Izu-Not, the fruit are too square, lobed and the characteristics of the tree do not match Izu. It’s still nonastringent though.
I’ve still got a tree full of Tam Kam that’s in a protected spot in the yard so it wasn’t affected by the hard freeze this week. They can stay on a little longer.
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Is Saijo more vigorous than others for you? I think it may be my most vigorous, although it could be the rootstocks.
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Saijo is more vigorous than my PCNA varieties. Some other PCA are more vigorous though.
Saijo has 2 growth spurts each year for me even though the trees are fruiting heavily. My PCNA now only have 1 round of growth during the spring with no additional summer growth now that they are fruiting.
My Saijo trees are around 15 feet tall after 4 years in the ground. I haven’t really topped them for height control yet.
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