To be clear, I’m talking about in ground trees. I usually broadcast in the root zone a relatively small amount and water in until all of the prills have dissolved and then some.
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I even just use blood meal. And I’m probably a bit on the stingy side. But a little goes a long way! Before I did fall fertilization, most of my persimmons would get 6-12" of growth, whether grafts or in-ground trees. After, I was getting more like 18-24" on in ground trees (various ages) and 8-14" on grafts.
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Do you use high nitrogen fertilizer for fall feeding as well? And when do you put it down? Thanks.
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Yes, I use blood meal. I consider the fall fertilization to be the biggest and most important one. The rest are just to help keep things moving along during the growing season. I usually do September, but I’ve gone as early as late August if I think they’re all done growing. Some sources suggest after hard frost, which would definitely be erring on the side of caution.
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From Clemson:
Late summer and early fall fertilizer applications take advantage of actively growing roots when shoot growth has ceased. Research indicates that early spring growth depends almost exclusively on nutrients absorbed and stored the previous year. When those reserves are used, and the new leaves expand and mature, then the tree acquires nutrients from the surrounding soil.
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Yep, that looks correct.
Still greenish but you picked it because of the bird peck I suppose.
They need to hang a bit longer…
Do you have a pollinator variety? Mikatani Gosho is PVNA so you can eat it like an apple if it is seeded.
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Thanks @Mikatani.
Yes, unfortunately I had to take it off as it would rot if I left it on.
Another one broke off the branch it was attached to. I do have a couple more ripening. Hopefully no more mishaps.
I have several pollinators - Coffee cake, Maru, and Zenji Maru.
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So @Fusion_power mentioned above to use 1/4 teaspoon in a 5gallon container.
I used way more as I didn’t see any instructions on the bag (and was in a hurry and didnt look up online).
I put what I’d usually do with TomatoTone and use 2 ‘handfuls’ spread out in a 25 gallon pot (which had 15-20 seedlings in 5 separate pots). Obviously too much. The small mom n’ pop garden store had huge 50lb bags only so i assumed very very wrongly i could apply liberally.
That much actually made me lightheaded breathing the ammonia fumes and took off half the day from work. Prob lost some brain cells but learned a good lesson to always check amount to use.
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I apply maybe 1/2 teaspoon or so to a 15 gallon equivalent in ground tree and scale up from there. I find this is more than enough
I usually mix it with an equal quantity of sulpomag and azomite. I am not convinced about azomite but use it because I have a lot of it and it will go waste otherwise.
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Yeah I too, struggled to find the “proper” amount for my potted trees as there were no directions on the bag. But I found some 12-12-12 from the local big box stores and ended up using 1 tablespoon per 5 gallon container.
1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoon.
So 1 tablespoon is 12x the size of 1/4 teaspoon.
Urea is what? like, 46-0-0 basically 4x the potency of 12-12-12.
So I used basically 1 full teaspoon of the Equivalent urea.
Anyhow, no burn to my persimmons or pawpaws, but I killed my coffee plant. And honestly, I didn’t get as much growth as I’d like. They were small grafted plants that I purchased from Buzz and other sources. They were like 6" tall at spring and are now like 18".
I applied fert 3x this year for them.
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Slow release fertilizers are so much better. Very hard to burn the plants,and much less gets washed away. The more consistent levels seem to correspond with better overall growth for a given amount of N, P, K applied (but I have no hard data to substantiate this). Espoma Organic fertilizers perform the best for me, with Osmocote being a close second.
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Which Espoma fertilizer do you use? Looks like they have a ton of variety.
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It depends on your P and K needs. I mostly use tree-tone for its higher N content, as that’s what’s usually in shortest supply. I also use blood meal. For blueberries, azaleas, etc, I use holly-tone.
Yes, good reminder to get a soil test. In most soils East of the Mississippi, there’s plenty of P and K available , but should be confirmed with a soil test. CA and Mg tend to be low around here, with our acidic sandy soils and abundant rain, so they can be limiting factors even though they’re ‘minor’ nutrients.
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American persimmons have been ripening here for a week or so. The small fruits in the box, bottom to top, are H63A, Barbra’s Blush, and Dollywood. The larger fruit at the top is a JT02 that ripened (and dropped) early due to internal damage below the stem.
In general, H63A and BB seem similar to me, except that the calyx on H63A seems to do a better job holding onto the fruit. As a result, a ripe H63A stays longer on the tree. BB seems more likely to plop.
Dollywood is larger than the other two and somewhat later. Last year I wasn’t sure that it is early enough to ripen here. This year I’m concluding that it is.
FWIW, JT-02 and Kasandra are later than all of these. My Kasandra fruits are coloring up rapidly; I think I may be able to pick some within a week. My JT-02 fruits (with this one exception) are showing a little color.
Among the Kakis, Saijo and Coffee Cake are well-colored. I hope to see them ripen within a couple weeks. IKKJ is starting to color; usually they aren’t well colored until late Oct. Giboshi is also starting to color but just barely. I had high hopes for Miss Kim, grafted a few years ago, but the branch broke, and there wasn’t even that much weight on it.
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Thanks for the info, I looked up tree tone and didn’t see the amount to use for potted plants. How much do you use and how often do you apply it?
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They have good directions on the back. For the 4"x10" tree pots, I usually sprinkle a handful 3-4 times a year, supplementing with blood meal for the fall feeding.
It’s definitely more expensive per unit of N than the synthetics, but it’s very user friendly and I think the plant is able to use more of what you add, since it doesn’t all become available at once. Think a steady flow instead of a flood followed by drought.
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My little roadside tree persimonilla…
Our drought this year has caused it to drop most leaves already… i found one soft fruit on it yesterday.
Little orange globes just shining there on the side of the road.
I have 3 others about this same size producing here on my place and they are all the same… most leaves dropped and orange fruit shining.
TNHunter
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