First Barbara’s Blush dropped yesterday. First of all my trees to ripen this year. Not as high quality as last year, very mild. I expect the main crop to be considerably better, but it was still nice to get to taste fresh persimmons this time of year. Nikita’s Gift stopped dropping fruit, so hopefully I’ll get to taste it for the first time this year, along with Yates and Claypool. The whole family is inquiring regularly wanting to know when Kassandra will be ready for them to eat. It’s the pretty clear favorite from last year for everyone.
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Persimmon update Sept 4.
My year 3 IKKJiro has 20+ fruit on and some are starting to show color.
My year 3 Kasandra has 30+ fruit on… no color yet .
My year 2 … H63A… still has 7 fruit on. No color on these yet… even though two have ripened already.
Those last 2 pics are barbaras blush in year 3.
It has 20+ fruit on and some getting more sun are blushing nicely while others more shaded by leaves still look mostly green.
Many of those are (2 - 2.25) inch persimmons… not bad for first year fruit.
TNHunter
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It is hard to see in the full shot, but this Cardinal hybrid (Honan Red x Rossy male) in a five gallon pot has about 10 persimmons on it.
It had 5 or so last year and had sent up a powerful shoot from right at the graft which seemed like a good leader replacement (I find persimmons often do this). It was growing stronger than the original leader, but I wasn’t 100% sure it wasnt from the rootstock so I waited to see fruit this year. Now that I can confirm it isn’t the rootstock I’ll trim off the older leader during the winter and focus on the new one. The new growth is actually the one with all the fruit so it is all bent over, but you can see from the Y that the new growth on the right is stronger. #persimmonsareweird
The fruit are a bit smaller than last year, but still bigger than DV types, probably averaging 100grams. I expect if it was in the ground and well nurished, etc. the fruit would be a bit bigger.
This one is definitely one of the “clingers” that holds fruit great and I really enjoy the tastes and texture as well. It also seems to be earlier than most kaki, but hard to tell since it is in a pot still. I was able to use alcohol to remove astringency from the still firm fruit last year (it took 5 days), but I’ll probably let them just ripen to soft this year. The fruit gets much more reddish when fully ripe, no doubt from the Honan Red heritage. Cliff reports it is hardy down to -16F, but I’ll never have anything close to that to test it here.
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I’m really hoping that Cardinal hybrid is similar to Kassandra in every way except larger fruit. Kassandra averaged right around 60 grams each last year. Excited to see if it flowers for me next year.
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Beautiful looking fruits there Walter. Strong work.
Tony
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Is Cardinal one of the nursery-renamed Kakis or American?
I think one of each.
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It’s a trade mark for d.kaki ‘Jo Choo’ .
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There are two persimmons named Cardinal. One is the kaki from One Green World. This is a trademarked early ripening non astringent - think early ripening jiro. Not many have fruited it, so I’m not sure how early it is compared to other earlier non astringent varieties like Izu, Matsumoto and IKKJ.
The second is a hybrid from Cliff England that is a cross of the kaki female Honan Red with the male hybrid Rossey male, which is a male seedling from Rosseyanka. This is the one I’m growing and posted pictures of above.
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Male seedling of an American crossed with Rosseyanka so it’s 25% Kaki for clarity’s sake
Making the Cardinal hybrid 62% kaki
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Wild persimmon on a hillside behind my house. Larger than any wild persimmon I’ve seen around Northwest Arkansas. Ate three with no astringency. Others on the tree aren’t ripe yet. One had zero seeds the other two had two seeds each.
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I have the kaki Cardinal from OGW in year 2 now. My IKKJiro fruited this year in year 3.
Hopefully my Cardinal fruits in the next year or two.
TNHunter
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That looks fantastic…esp no seeds. I would grab a few scions off of it just to have another line with promise.
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How was the texture of the three without astringency? Soft and gooey or somewhat firm? Looks like a nice find.
Nice finds.
Tony
It was firm. I put a couple on the counter for a few days and will be back in town to check on the tree this weekend.
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@grow44 … that would be somewhat unique for American persimmon. Still firm yet ripe (not astringent).
I am in southern TN and harvest from several wild trees and they are all quite soft when non astringent.
You can pick them when orange and somewhat firm… but you better give them at least a week on the counter before you start trying them… initally they will be very astringent. They will soften up in that week and become non astringent.
That pic above is of a roadside wild that I harvest from and have named persimonilla.
Look at that tiny frail, small diameter limb tip wood. That is one of the differeces in 60C southern persimmons (which is what I have here)… and 90C northern persimmons.
90C northerns normally have much thicker limb tip wood (ideal for scion… 1/4 inch or so).
Wondering if you might have an oddball 90C female there… but all the other persimmon males near by may be 60C. That would explain the very low seed count.
I have several grafted 90c females (Prok, H63A, H118, Barbaras blush)… and I have lots of 60c males around… and so far my seed counts have been very low… like 1 full size seed.
My H63A was still quite astringent when orange and somewhat firm.
TNHunter
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It will get better. My H63a this year has been absolutely delicious- much better than every year before and it is also ripening earlier.
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Good to hear @ramv
Picked my first ripe Meader persimmon today. Soft but still astringent. I just had to try it. 3 seeds.
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