Had to pay a visit to my sister’s home today… got a couple pictures of Rich Tooie.
It is starting to drop a few.. but I could not find one on the ground of eating quality.
When I got back home.. walked over and checked my Prok tree.. and one had ripened and dropped. Split a little but I think we will still get a taste of it in a day or two.
My persimmon ripening chamber is getting crowded.
TNHunter
Today checked my Barbaras Blush… and found a persimmon had ripened and dropped.
A few more are getting near ready.
It looks like my Cardinal asian and H63A are going to start ripening first fruits about the same time…
And.. Prok and Barbaras Blush are too.
TNHunter
Ate my first Prok persimmon tonight after dinner. My wife and I split a Prok and H63A.
The flavors of the two were somewhat similar.. but Prok was more mild.. and H63A was more intense.
Prok is larger.
TNHunter
From today Sept 2…
4 Barbaras Blush.. several H63As.
Noticed today some of my IKKJ are starting to show color. This Heat is sure spurring on the persimmon ripening.
TNHunter
My 6 sided JT02 is still hanging on.. still mostly green.
Nikitas Gift has lightened up.
Kasandra.. just a few on the sunny side starting to show a little color.
TNHunter
Does anyone know what specific variety this is? These are on sale at Shoprite this week. The bag of persimmons says 32oz. I weighed it at the store at about 40oz. It is marketed as “Midnight Persimmons”. Shoprite’s price tag/marker says “Chocolate persimmon”. I know there is a chocolate persimmon variety and I’ve looked at photos of it, and it looks MUCH different than this variety (acorn shape rather than this fuyu shaped persimmon).
This persimmon has seeds in it. I counted 3 seeds in the one I ate just now. It’s really outstanding. It has a pronounced brown sugar/caramel taste to it. That in combination with the typical “fuyu persimmon flavor note”; comes off as pastry dough in this persimmon. So you have this crunchy persimmon with brown sugar/caramel notes wrapped in the flavor of pastry dough.
It tastes WAY better than any store bought fuyu Persimmon I’ve ever had. The persimmon is hard. The one I had just now had no astringency. The one yesterday I ate had seeds in it but I tasted some astringency in that (it seemed to be the pulp near the seeds that had it) but it was quite mild astringency.
I have to admit, I was never a big fan of the Fuyu persimmons (I love me a Hachiya persimmon) . This completely changes the game. Is this a PVNA (Pollination-Variant Non-Astringent) variety while the standard grocery store Fuyu is a PCNA (Pollination-Constant Non-Astringent)?
Yes, those appear to be PVNA. Most likely Coffee Cake (Nishimura Wase).
Any update on how your Journey hybrid tastes?
So ‘possums and rats have been raiding our Asian persimmons trees (SE Texas), so I decided I’d better harvest one of each cultivar that was still hanging (a few got completely cleaned out). A little immature, but here is was was still available for a montage:
Here is one of the varmints that was snacking on our persimmons (and breaking a lot of branches in the process)
very nice collection ! i heard that sijo is very great for Dried persimmon.
akoumanzaki is new to me. i can’t map it in to it;s original japanense name.
i think it;s ako-uman-zaki . ako probably ment red here.
BTW that does’t look like hana-gosho to me. 花御所(hana-gosho) should be a flat-round to bun shape.more like fuyu. this cubic shape is very strange.
does it produce male flower？ hana-gosho is male&female.
My mystery nonastringent tree set lots of fruit and i have assumed it was self thinning. But my spouse brought in one that had turned orange but was soft and gooey inside. It was sweet. Is that a known behavior? Nonastringent fruit going soft and ripe early?
We’ve been in drought but have been slowly coming out of it with humid thunderstorm rains. (Still “Moderate Drought” per Thursday’s drought monitor.)
I long ago lost IDs on many of my persimmons. Yates, Prok, SFES(a local 60-C selection, ‘816’(possibly Meader’), NC-10, and John Rick are all dropping ripe fruits.
Sorry for the delay, I’ve been traveling and needed to get pictures organized, etc.
I’m pretty sure I missed the first one or two ripe fruit on the tree, since they do indeed seem to fall and the community garden where I have the tree definitely gets a lot of traffic from various critters. I was really hoping they’d stay attached when ripe.
On August 25 I picked one that was fully colored but still a bit too firm and brought it home to finish ripening. For reference that is about the same timing as Prok and H-118, so if it is the earliest of ripening it is still pretty close to the early Americans, so not enough difference to matter to me.
I ate it on the 27th. There was a hint of vanilla, although not super strong, and I would say it reminded my of Celebrity with a little brighter/lighter flavor than most Americans and almost a hint of orange. Pleasant, but not exceptional. Taste is very personal, so maybe it is a home run to others. Main downsides are size (averaging 35-40 grams) based on the one I tasted and two more I picked to ripen, and the seeds. It is very well pollinated, but for some reason the seeds are still soft and seem immature or maybe they just aren’t forming a hard outside coat. When eating it is hard to get the flesh away from the seeds without the seeds breaking up and I wasn’t interested in eating parts of the seeds so I didn’t wind up eating much.
So, perhaps for someone who doesn’t have any males to pollinate the tree, it is a better eating experience. I’ve noticed there can be a fair bit of difference in the taste of varieties year to year, so maybe it would be more of a standout in another year.
But I don’t really have much room and since they aren’t great to eat with the seeds I expect I’ll cull this variety and repace that graft on my chocolate with another variety. Sorry @KS_razerback but it doesn’t look like I’ll. have any viable seeds for you to grow out.
I look forward to hearing what others think of Journey when they get fruit. Perhaps I don’t even have the correct variety, like all the issues with DS.
It’s not typical but in my limited experience it can happen. Early ripening is especially likely when there is damage to the fruit, such as a bird peck or a crack at the calyx. The damaged flesh releases ethylene, which accelerates ripening.
I pity, maybe it would be different next year? How many fruit are still on the tree.
Probably a dozen. I’ll try to harvest more as they color up and see whether they improve or I see any seeds that look viable. There was a pretty good set, but then a pretty good drop as well. Chocolate itself and Zima Khurma that is also grafted to the tree held fruit very well.
It certainly could be better next year. I may look at leaving one of the side branches coming off the graft to give it another year to prove itself.
Yes, Saijo is excellent for making hoshi gaki from. As you may know, “Saijo” means “the best one” in Japanese. Just yesterday I harvested 60 Saijo fruit to start a batch of hoshi gaki with. I’ll add a few photos here of the process I use and the results. I will peel them on Monday and start the drying process. There will be a homemade hoshi gaki tasting contest at the Texas Rare Fruit Growers meeting in Houston next month ($100 prize), and I will enter the competition.
You are probably correct about my Hana Gosho being mislabeled. I have around 15 different kaki cultivars, all obtained for free as cuttings at our annual Texas Rare Fruit Growers scion exchange. I would not be at all surprised if the donor or I mislabeled my original scion. I don’t recall if that branch (it is top-worked as a single limb on a IKKJ tree) produces any “male” flowers or not. My 2 Hana Fuyu trees produce lots of “male” flowers, so invariably all my kaki fruit have seeds.
Here is a post I made last year about making hoshi gaki from our Saijo fruits: Air dried Hachiya persimmon - #24 by Johnsgard
With Americans I’ve noticed that the last ones to ripen taste better than the first off the tree. Could be like that with the Journey. After countless years of dropping I’ve got three Nikita’s Drops holding on. Hope I’m not as disappointed as you, cause like you I’m quick to graft over.
