So Chocolate is winter-hardy in your spot?
So far no issues. I think it probably saw 5-7 degrees this year, but I don’t have a thermometer at that spot (my community garden plot).
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Persimmon (100-46) changing its mind?
My American persimmons regularly shed small or interior branches over the winter. This one dropped some small branches when it went dormant but seems to have now decided it wants them back. #persimmonsareweird
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Like me and some of my old girlfriends 
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So you’re the reason why my kakis have seeds!
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Nikita’s Drop preparing to set hundreds of little disappointments … or maybe she’ll surprise me this year.
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This year’s Soshu .
Last year we suffered 100% fruit abortion.
And the tree save up many nutrition.
This year’s flower has been overcorrect.
We make some cross hope this year’s typhoon have mercy on us.
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I see my persimmons usually alternate bear. Last year was a huge crop. This year may be much lighter.
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You may try to girdle the tree or branches to see if it will help. That’s traditional method used by Chinese farmers for generations. Do that after first wave of drop, likely in end of June.
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Persimmon has a very high tendency to biennial fruiting.
Pruning fruit is mandatory to smooth out curve.
But in 2024 a triple typhoon do the pruning for us. Leaving 0 fruit left and unspend nutrition budget for 2025.
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I have a question about persimmon SDS. Does it affect hybrids as well as kakis? I have all kakis under a year old (Fuyu, Jiro, Maekawa, Ichi, Saijo…).
I’m just trying to get informed to know what to graft on them if that ever happens
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I can’t speak for all hybrids, but I have had Kasandra and Nikita’s Gift die from SDS. I haven’t seen it on Rosseyanka, Zima Khurma, JT-02, or Sestronka yet, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t susceptible.
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I agree. Hybrids seem just as likely to die from SDS as full Kaki varieties. If you lose a tree to SDS, your only option is probably to remove and replant or to graft on an American persimmon variety.
And actually, I’m not entirely sure if there are any dangers to replanting, since persimmons will often send up new shoots from any remaining roots (you are unlikely to get them all out), and trees can self-graft roots to other roots from the same species. So, perhaps replanting still has some risk of the remaining roots or the original tree passing it onto a new tree.
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Thank you. Does it travel from one tree to another? All of my Kakis are on DV.
There’s been some research connecting Kaki SDS to the bacterial pathogen Xylella fastidiosa which is transmitted between plants by xylem sap-feeding insects like sharpshooters and spittlebugs. Xylella fastidiosa - Wikipedia
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Wow, an interesting read, although I didn’t see persimmons mentioned there. It was so sad to hear that they also affect Olives, and that it has decimated orchards in Italy. I’m originally from Spain and the Olive tree is such a comodity… It would be devastating if this takes over.
Given that I live in East Texas (humid climate),is there a high risk that my Kaki trees may end up infected and dying from this?
Pedro
Here is an article about KSDS: Graft-transmissible agents in oriental persimmons (Diospyros kaki L) in the southeastern USA. | Australasian Plant Disease Notes
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I would talk to others who grow Kakis in your area and see what their experience has been. It’s high risk for me here in NC, but I still think they’re worth growing. I just expect to lose some periodically and have to keep replanting new trees to replace them.
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I also see variable results. I have an established DV tree that I believe is infected. Infection would explain (1) the death after 3 years of what had been a thriving graft of the PCA Kaki Miss Kim and (2) the death last spring of all four bark grafts of the hybrid Nikita’s Gift. On the other hand, grafts of the hybrid JT-02 and the American H-118 all succeeded.
I have had other grafts of JT-02 survive on this tree for ~4 years. So I am quite certain that the hybrid JT-02 is immune to whatever afflicted Miss Kim and Nikita’s Gift. I have had successful grafts of many American varieties, so as far as I can tell DV is tolerant.
Finally, I had otherwise inexplicable failures of grafts of Matsumoto Wase Fuyu, Taishu, and Cardinal on rootstock trees harvested as root suckers from the presumably infected tree. I’d prefer to attribute these failures to SDS than to my own poor grafting skills. 
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KSDS is certainly a mystery in many ways - at least to me. I had JT-02, Zima Khurma and Nikita #4 (seedling of Nikitas Gift I believe) die from what I was pretty sure was KSDS that was probably pre-existing in a large (12 foot tall) seedling I grafted over to a variety of hybrids and American persimmons. The 2 grafts of the American persimmon Ruby, lower down and on small branches which makes me think they should be disadvantaged vs. the hybrids above, are growing like weeds several years later. For the hybrids it was classic SDS - growing strong, then suddenly dying back at the tips with the little brown lines showing in leaves… and then dead as a doornail the next spring.
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