Saijo is the earliest ripening Kaki here, among 2 PCAs, 3 PCNAs, and 3 PVNAs. But it doesn’t ripen all at once. I picked the first one on Oct 1. I brought roughly 2/3 of the crop indoors (cool garage) in early Nov. I ate the last one today.
As I recall, it was always either completely non astringent or so mildly astringent that it didn’t matter.
Maybe you’ve already done it, but what are the other persimmons.
Saijo is literally my last to turn orange, didn’t get full orange before it lost its leaves.
Others are Izu, Matsumoto Wase Fuyu, Fuyugaki, probably some type of Jiro, Giombo and H118. I think Nikita’s gift was earlier too, at least the year they both made something the Nikita’s gift softened to deliciousness inside and the Saijo softened to dull colored flavorlessness (this year I got an indoor ripened Saijo that was good).
PCNAs are IKKJ, Izu, Taishu. PVNAs are Nishimura Wase, Tsurunoko, Giboshi. PCAs are Saijo and Sheng. FWIW, my Americans (which ripen earlier) are H63A, Barbra’s Blush, Dollywood, H-118, Morris Burton.
We are in the same region. You can pretty much grow whatever Asian persimmons you like climate wise.
KSDS is a big deal. I lost two mature trees with KSDS otherwise I would be someone who shows off 400 persimmons on a dining table. 
For people who are interested in KSDS, I cut my dying Hana Fuyu tree in early November. The tree is half alive and gave me about 15 Niu Wai persimmons that were extremely sweet this year. The problem may not in the xylem as one research paper suggested.
Yeah, we have some overlapped varieties as I thought.
Ditto. And the least flavorful.
They were good years ago. I don’t know what changed.
I only have a few persimmons left. Garrettson and H-118. I have been trying to twist them off. If they won’t twist, I leave them. If they twist, I twist them. Some will come right off. Others will disintegrate in my hands. The process is gooey and awkward, but delicious. Some are low enough that I can eat the remainder directly off the tree. If not, oh well.
John S
PDX OR
I still have 5 IKKJiro fruit on the counter under glass… I have been applying a bit of (100 proof vodka) to them by spray… I once or twice a week.
They have turned a little deeper orange, some with red tint… but so far all are still quite firm.
They hung on the tree nice and orange for a month… and now have been on the counter at room temp for near 3 weeks.
They seem to keep good… none have spoiled… in the fridge… I imagine they would last for months.
TNHunter
Sole jt02 of the season after heavy critter predation.
Very large hybrid - almost as large as Jiro.
Very sweet, texture like a Hachiya, soft and runny. Flavor almost identical to kaki. I could not detect any American
If you don’t like very soft persimmons this is not for you.
Agreed. The ripe fruit is very mushy.
I’ve concluded that it’s stupid to try to remove the calyx from a ripe JT-02 manually. You just end up with mush. The best technique for eating it seems to be to start from the bottom, which is mushiest, then work your way around the perimeter.
That said, it’s very tasty.
You may recall that my young (2nd leaf) Izu produced >20 ripe fruits. Well, almost ripe – I finished them indoors. I worried that I had let the tree overbear. The taste seems to prove it. I sampled a half dozen over the past 2 weeks. All of them were blah. I threw the rest away.
I don’t take this experience as signifying anything permanent. Next year I’ll let the tree grow with hopefully a much smaller crop.
I guess I won’t be sad that my graft is runted. Maybe time to start thinking about reclaiming that planting space.
I grew Izu many years ago here in the PNW. It was the first to ripen and it ripened every year. However, I think that although it was sweet, the flavor was uninteresting to me. Afterwards, Jim Gilbert of One Green World fame handed me a Garretson. It blew my mind. Then I decided to grow only American persimmons.
John S
PDX OR
I found the old American variety Crowe at Fayette Etter’s. I was able to ID it from his notes consistent with size, color, and described flavor. I will have to dig deep again to find those other notes beside the short one here.
Anyone know anything about Crowe? He spelled it as both Crow and as Crowe. Presumably it’s separate from the Early Golden family.
It’s got good size and productivity but the flavor is not ideal.
Just as I was starting to run out of my own persimmons and thinking I’d need to head out to an Asian market to get some, a friend called me about her neighbor’s persimmon tree. Apparently this large old tree had already given the owners way more than they could use and they had already given most neighbors bags of fruit. She asked me if I would like to come pick some.
I packed up a 6 foot step ladder a hand pruner and a loper and headed over. The tree is large and beautiful. It is probably around 30 feet tall and in talking to the owners they said they had planted it when they moved in 30 years ago. Like all older trees in the area, they call it a Fuyu but that is just a generic term around here for non-astringent so I have no idea of the exact variety.
If you look closely you can see where they topped it back to 15 or so feet a few years ago. That lead to a year without fruit as the tree went vegetative to recover from the hard prune. I had driven by this beautiful specimen earlier in the season when visiting my friend and I would estimate it was holding at least 600 fruit, very likely close to 1000.
Most of the fruit are now being pecked at by house sparrows and starlings, but even so the majority of the fruit was out of reach and would have required at least a 12 foot ladder to get close to. They had already harvest all the low stuff and gave it away. I still came home with a nice back of fruit from what I could reach that wasn’t badly pecked.
I thought I’d share this here since many people ask how large various persimmons get and most of us have young trees by comparison to this tree. It will be interesting to see how I can prune my trees to keep them from getting too tall, while still not setting them back too far and having them give a light crop of skip a year after pruning.
What a wonderful tree! Let me guess – PCA, astringent when hard, very sweet when softened? Seedless?
My semi green picked Saijo ripened off the tree super fast.
They were very sweet and flavorful with zero astringency. Thicker skin than other varieties. Very large seed.
Hello. I’m new to this forum, but I have some practical experience growing persimmons (DV, DK, and hybrid, more then 60 varieties) in Zone 6b (for over 10 years). Both in ground and in containers. I’ve read many posts about the Taishu, but I haven’t found an answer: where in the US can I find cuttings of this variety? I’d be very grateful for a referral to a trusted source of genetic material!
PM me. My tree is small and extra wood is minimal.
Welcome to the forum!
It is actually a non-astringent type and they are seedless. I’ve eaten a few and it tastes the way pretty much all non-astringent persimmons taste to me - sweet, crunchy and enjoyable, but not as deep a flavor or as sweet as a fully ripe astringent like Saijo. I know they’ll get a little sweeter if I let them fully soften, but I prefer to eat non-astringent persimmons firm.
They are a little bigger than many of the non-astringent fruit that make it to our stores, but about the size of the few fruit that survived the squirrel rush on my neighbors IKKJ.
