I see fruits on 4 year old Kaki and 2 year old NK. What’s likelihood they don’t drop?
I don’t think anyone can answer your question accurately. I’ve been posting about Nikita’s gift for years and that it rarely drops for me. Others have been posting for years that it keeps dropping.
It likely has only a little to do with how old your trees are. Much more important is climate and possibly other hither to unknown factors.
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I saved a few seed from the England Orchard tour last year. I didn’t take notes which tree they came from but I’m sure that the ones from the tasting are all hybrids. The seedlings are much bigger than any of the pure American I started under identical conditions from several other places. Is this to be expected (hybrid growth is more vigorous than pure American, at least initially)?
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We tasted a handful of americans as well as hybrids there, but if you liked the fruit enough to save the seeds I’d plant it. I think Cliff told me once that hybrid seedlings were over 50% male. Worth growing if you have the space!
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Yeah, I’m thinking that I will try to grow them in pots for a while since it would likely be cooked in Zone 6 A/B. If it turns out to be a good fruit then I’ll try to graft back to a pure dv rootstock. I think the male ratio could even be higher than 50%. I have more than 50% but I think that the ratio is skewed because there is a big group of clonal males.
If I can make it this year, I intend to take much better notes.
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I fall fertilized all my trees in August/September with a “heavy” dose of blood meal (still pretty light compared to package recommendations). Everything responded well, but the persimmons definitely appreciated it! In previous years, I never got more than 8" of growth except on one particularly vigorous graft. This year, I’m seeing tremendous growth on all the persimmons, with the in-ground and established potted trees showing 18"+ and still going strong. This includes a potted Chinebuli that I root-pruned and potted up to the next size mid-summer. The younger, ungrafted trees are less dramatic, but definitely more vigorous than previous years. I’ll have to see what this year’s grafts do. Their rootstocks got the same treatment, but they’ve only just started pushing growth.
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For small persimmon seedlings about how much blood meal per tree?
I planted a bunch of small seedlings from county ag dept. 2 years ago and they are still small whips. Should I give them fertilizer now? I have read mixed recommendations.
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I wouldn’t hesitate to fertilize them now. I always fertilize my trees at planting. What makes it work is that A) I’m mostly using slow-release fertilizers like Espoma and Osmocote (blood meal is faster but nothing like the soluble stuff) and B) I go easy on the fertilizer.
Those two factors make it all but impossible to burn the roots and helps the trees get a good start. It doesn’t seem to hurt their root systems. When I up-pot the trees from their air prune pots or deep forestry pots, the root systems always look great.
I’d do a small handful for potted trees (maybe a tablespoon for something like a 4x10 treepot), and a medium-large handful for trees in ground. The larger the tree, the more it gets. For potted trees, use something more complete than blood meal. In ground trees will have at least some of the other stuff available in most decent soils. You can fertilize now, maybe once more over the summer, and then again in late August/early September. I’d recommend using soil test to guide your rates of P and K application. Those are more variable (and often not needed). Your gut feeling on how well things are growing, along with soil organic matter from the soil test, are a better guide to whether you need to add any N to the system.
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I take that back. We’re looking at a solid 24"+ of growth and counting on my trees.
That potted Chinebuli is more than doubling in height. I grafted it in 2020.
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Give some dried chicken manure a try. Persimmons just look at it and grow 4 inches.
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I have no doubts it would be equally effective. At present, I have much better access to blood meal than dried chic manure. The real interesting thing is not what precise N source I used but that it was the fall application that seems to have made the difference.
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ive seen some videos of popular you tubers using raw chic manure diluted with water and poured directly around the roots and it didnt burn. i havent tried it but i might.
i need to start doing that. spring has got so hectic, id rather do it in nov.
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It works great. Maybe a bit earlier, though. It’s important for the soil to still be pretty warm, so the roots actively take it up and squirrel it away for the spring.
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i use chic manure so maybe mid sept. to give it time to break down before it freezes.
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It’s persimmon grafting day. I’ve decided its warm enough.
I’m going to try to stretch these scions to graft onto 3 rootstocks each. A few rootstocks might only get one bud.
The trees with the tubes taken off are the candidates. Most were planted last year. Some were planted as bare root a couple weeks ago and are beginning to leaf out now.
Some of the trees have vigorous new growth, sometimes of caliper as big or larger than my scions. Will be sad to cut it all off.
What happens if you were to attempt to graft dormant scion onto green new growth? Anyone ever tried it?
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An as experiment, I decided to try grafting my dormant scion onto green growth on 2 trees. Just to see what happens. I saved a bit of scion with a bud as backup if/when these fail.
Also left a bit of leaf on, and used my grafting knife to remove the dormant bud at the node.
A very small caliper one:
And also a larger caliper one:
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I’m not sure if they won’t/are less likely to heal together when one piece is lignified or not, but I’d think the biggest potential problem would be the green growth drying out faster.
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Agreed. We will see. I hope it works.
In the plus column, the green growth:
-cuts like butter
-fat cambium layer makes it easy to get great contact
-soft, so easy to form/squish to get good contact
Negatives:
-more difficult to tape as it’s so soft it is a bit fragile