Did they reach maturity? True to type? Worth the hype?
I’m very hopeful the Taishu on my front porch is the correct one. I may need a backup to be sure at some point.
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The smaller fruit fell off the tree, pale orange but with soft flesh. The larger fruit was in similar condition, a bit deeper orange, starting to split, so I picked it.
Both were edible (and unseeded) but very mild-tasting. Not even normal IKKJ flavor.
This is a young tree in a pot, so I’m not expecting much. There’re a few more unripe fruits on the tree, so I’m patiently waiting to see what they do.
Taishu is not supposed to ripen this early, so I’m not assuming that these two fruits represent anything normal.
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Trying to find Vaniglia or would take Journey Hybrid tree if anyone happens to find anyone with one. Tried grafting again, no luck, maybe incompatible rootstock as someone said, and don’t really want to buy a rootstock/scion again to try.
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I have grafted Vaniglia onto a few trees I have. Of all the grafts I’ve done it seems to be the one that takes the easiest…I’ve grafted it onto giant fuyu and natives I have here (should be 60c in SE Tx). I’d love to just send you a tree but everything I have it on is large & in ground or my multi-grafts. I got my scion from fruitwood. If you don’t find what you are looking for I can send scions when its eventually dormant here.
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I was wondering how soon I can pick an astringent Asian Persimmon after it starts to change color without affecting their quality. I have a lot of pressure from birds eating them once they start softening up.
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Perhaps the group can help me decipher what varieties im dealing with here. Last year I grafted three close root suckers with one of each: H118, Meader, and H63a. Hurricane Helene took out my temporary labels. One didnt bear any fruit. One started ripening first, clinging to the tree, with a flat, seedless fruit that is sweet with strong hints of tangerine and apricot a very clear flesh and skin, and just the slightest hint of astringency. The other started ripening a little later, dropped right at ripeness, more round, full of seeds, less sweet with a bit of opacity to the skin, and resembled pumpkin in flavor. One of these is quite superior to the other two in this limited trial and I’m curious to know which you think it is!
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Seedless fruit sweet etc I think H118
later more round full of seeds I think Meader
one didnt bear could be H63A
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Pulping? What’s the best way to pulp American persimmons that are fully pollinated so have seeds?
I’ve seen people use a food mill, which I have, and also just smoosh them through a collander, which I also have. Either one better/easier than the other. I’m probably not ready to buy a new kitchen gadet anytime soon, but I expect there is something out there that works well if you are doing this in bulk and I should consider putting on my wish list.
Extra points if it yields relatively clean seeds.
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Try a five gallon bucket with a paint mixer/ screw gun. Once mashed, pass through a pasta strainer with larger holes but one that doesn’t let the seeds through. You can clean the seeds for more yeilds if you think the juice is worth the squeeze.
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The food mill. I bought the $20 amazon attachment for my meat grinder. I’m thinking about giving it a whirl this weekend. It’s raining H63a’s at the moment.
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I’m so jealous. I’m out of persimmons.
Actually that’s not true. I have two left on a wild one, but I have no idea if I’ll be able to get those before the birds. It’s still ripening and I’m going to be out of town for a bit, which mean I’ll likely miss it.
Other than that, I just have to wait until my ‘Wonderful’, ‘Prok’ , and ‘Lehman’s Delight’ start producing…
The wild one was planted to graft, but I might leave it be. I have one other rootstock in the ground and need to think carefully what I want grafted on that. I want it to be a little farther away from the cultivars I have, so I’m using this graft that was made by Richard( is there a way to tag on here) on this forum. This graph is amazing! I wish we had more detail of the DAC cultivars tho.
Richard’s graph below:
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Gobsmacked by how much my David’s Kandy has grown this year. It went in the ground last September at 2 ft high. For scale, the bottom of that window is probably 8-10 feet.
Should I prune off the side branches and just leave that CL? This is my first persimmon. Given where it is in this narrow side yard, I kind of need to train it as a rectangle (I can have it spread toward that wooden fence and toward me with the camera, but not toward the house or over the metal fence).
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I generally don’t prune many of the lower branches off my native persimmons as long as they are at least 24" off the ground and usually the same to start with hybrids. I want to encourage lower fruiting to keep it from being crazy tall. But they often abort lower branches as the top fllls out.
In your case, I would probably prune the branches that are at such shallow angles (competing leaders really), since in the long run they’ll be hard to keep from spliting in the wind or with a heavy crop load. As they thicken, cutting them off later will leave larger wounds. I would leave the relatively smaller branches coming out close to right angles. The tree may drop those anyway, but they might be more likely to give you fruit earlier than the “rocket” tops heading for the moon.
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I sampled three nice ripe DV varieties this morning. They are Prok, Lehman’s Delight and H-63a going from left to right. They were all about the same diameter, but Prok is the tallest, LD is in the middle and H-63a is the shortest, being a fairly flat form.
All were seeded, with Prok and H-63a having the most seeds and this time LD only having 2. I don’t think this is indicative of any long-term likelihood of one or the other varieties being more likely to have seeds. H-63a is on the Prok tree, which is quite large at this point with a hundreds of flowers this spring so I think it just brought more pollinators. In previous years with a lot fewer fruit Prok was more likely to have only 3-4 seeds per fruit. The H-63a tree is in the backyard and a much smaller tree. That said, if it does turn out one or the other of the varieties is most likely to have fewer seeds that would be a point in its favor. I have no idea where the male tree is relative to my trees, so it is clear that native persimmons can be pollinated by male trees fairly far away.
Many people complain of Prok being bland, but I have never found that to be the case, although the others are more intensely flavored. I’m quite happy to eat them and I like the large size. But overall I do prefer the other two because they are more intensly flavored, so if all are ripe and available, I’ll probably use more of the Prok for processing and save the others for eating fresh.
Tastewise, I think both LD and H-63a are great and I don’t think I can say I prefer one over the other. As has been discussed, overall flavor of American persimmons is fairly similar, but I would say that LD has a bit more of a brown sugar hint to the flavor while H-63a is a little more toward carmel.
I still have Ruby, Barbara’s Blush, H-118 and Morris Burton #3 yet to ripen and sample, plus a few hybrids and my Giboshi kaki.
One last note on tasting is that I have seen some definite changes to flavors as the trees mature or even year to year. For instance, LD was great the first time I got fruit from it as a little tree two years ago, was pretty boring and almost pasty in texture last year and is now back to being a great tasting persimmon this year.
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Nikitas gift is absolutely loaded. The branches are bent - including the main trunk from all the fruit. In future I have to start thinning the tree
Chuchupaka is much earlier and still delicious
H118 is getting close. H63a- I’ve been picking for several weeks now. First year for massive production with h118
Mikatani Gosho is an excellent PVNA variety. Also very productive
All my hybrid and kaki fruits are well pollinated. You can tell by the bulge on the fruit. I believe pollination significantly improves the flavor.
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Great pictures! My H-118 has been very productive as well. I think its a winner. I cant comment on your others since i dont grow them yet. NG is not cold hardy to my zone long term.
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Post some pics of the Morris Burton #3 when they ripen. I think I accidently grafted it. Or at least I think that’s what it is. I put two sticks of H120 on a tree and one is not it. The fruit are small and just starting to turn a little orange. It’s either that or Tony’s home made variety. Who knows maybe it’s great.
On your post about seeds I’m averaging 1-3 seeds per fruit. There are lots of wild males around here also. That’s still better than the average wild which is a bag of seeds with a little pulp. @zendog
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Are soft seeds viable?
I have H63a that might have been pollinated by one of my many male kakis. We don’t have American persimmons where I live.
The seeds are very soft. Can they generate offspring? I’d be very excited to get a new hybrid variety!
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How mature looking?