Persimmons experiment gone awry or not? I need your enlightenment & opinions

[Shabou]

Hello all!

What do you get when you mix an unconditional love of persimmons, a lack of knowledge & experience in the fruit trees field & far from top notch climatic growing conditions? Yes, you got it: TROUBLES

I planted nine 3 years-old persimmons, spring 2021. 4 of them were Mohler and 5 of them were Meader. They were listed (nursery claim) as quite hardy persimmons (zone 4/5 Canada).

At Spring 2022, all seem to be in critical condition: gray all over and no (obvious) buds on trunk and branches, even tiny ones,

Until June 25, since no sign of being alive were noticed I was prepared to call them: DEAD.

And then two of them decided to develop some leave and the remaining 7 started to grow from the bottom end of the trees. I thought to myself: root suckers but now after about 6/7 weeks of growth I’m not so sure anymore and I need your opinion because I have seen root suckers before but those (see attached photos) are extremely hardy and the growth has been very rapid in my ipinion.

Here photos of the seven trees with different views (named A & B). I could publish other photos if those are not sufficient to make an informed opinion.

Thank you!

Marc

[BobC]

Looks like the rootstock is growing. Were these grafted?

[elivings1]

Persimmon are cloned through grafting onto seedling rootstock. The rootstock is now growing and not the name varieties. Often times rootstock do see to have quite the vigor but may not produce as desirable fruit

[tonyOmahaz5]

You can grow them out and take your chances to get a good fruit or re graft to a name cultivar next May 2023.

[DennisD]

You should be able to see the actual graft union. The larger leaf seems to look more like a grafted variety, but the smaller leaves clearly are suckers

[murky]

4, 5, 6 are almost certainly all rootstock.

I’ll bet 2 has some variety growth:

In general, if you see 2 kinds of leaves, or mature bark, the higher originating of the 2 is the variety.

[Shabou]

Thank you gentlemen for taking time to answer my post. I feel more secure now about what to do next with those trees. Will contact nursery to inquire about rootstock of those Mohler & Meader. If the fruits coming from those are supposed to be of good or even average tasting quality and are ready to harvest before mid October I will keep all of them. Marc

[Shabou]

@BobC : Yes they are all grafted. Marc

[BobC]

Looks like you have a great base to graft to.

[murky]

Almost certainly the rootstocks are seedling Virginiana. Most will probably be male, if female fruit quality will be a crapshoot, and they will need to be pollenized by males. If you are growing them to eat the fruit, I think you’d want to graft the ones that have lost the variety.

[Shabou]

Fairy tales do come true sometimes… Read those emails and experience outstanding customer service… Marc

+++++++++++++ latest email to first email, read on, please

Hi Marc

We will credit you for that.Its not fair that you have to be the guinea pig.You have been an amazing customer thus far!

Lawrence

Sent from my Bell Samsung device over Canada’s largest network.

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From: Marc Lamarre adorenz@yahoo.com
Sent: Monday, August 8, 2022 2:42:07 PM
To: Lawrence Martin lawrence@whiffletree.ca; Lowell Martin lowell@whiffletree.ca
Subject: Re: To kill persimmons trees or not? That is the question… and I truly need your opinion.

Invoice: 212955 is for seven (7) persimmon trees @ 49.95$ is 349.65$ + tax + shipping cost. A very costly mistake… for me. If I had read in the catalogue that those trees were rated zone 5/6 I would have not bought them…

Marc Lamarre

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Le 8 août 2022 à 13:43, Lawrence Martin lawrence@whiffletree.ca a écrit :

Hello Marc

I am sorry to hear that your persimmons didn’t work out…Unfortunately the rootstock won’t amount to much in terms of fruit quality so I guess your probably right, we should sell them as Zone 5/6…

Regards Lawrence

Sent from my Bell Samsung device over Canada’s largest network.

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From: Marc Lamarre adorenz@yahoo.com
Sent: Sunday, August 7, 2022 8:11:45 PM
To: Lowell Martin lowell@whiffletree.ca; Lawrence Martin lawrence@whiffletree.ca
Subject: To kill persimmons trees or not? That is the question… and I truly need your opinion.

Good morning gentlemen;

I planted nine 3 years-old persimmons at spring 2021. Four of them were Mohler and five of them were Meader. All of them from Whiffletree. They were listed in your catalogue as quite hardy persimmons (zone 4/5 Canada).

Came Spring 2022, all seem to be in critical condition: gray all over and no swelling buds on trunks or branches.

Until June 25, since no sign of being alive were noticed I was prepared to call them: DEAD.

And then two of them decided to develop some leave from existing branches and the remaining 7 started to grow from the rootstock and nothing from the name varieties.

I could grow them out and take my chances to get mediocre or very average fruits. I do not graft and don’t know anyone who does so it’s either keep or kill…

What can you tell me about the rootstock of those trees? They seem to be hardy and grow fast but will they produce good fruits and at what period of the year? Early October? Late Oct. or even later???

I took about 20 photos of all of them but of hight quality and don’t know how to reduce photo resolution in order to send many. Can only send 3 or 4 in one email… Here a couple examples.

SUGGESTION: Maybe you should stop calling Meader & Mohler as fitted for 4/5 hardiness zones… I believe they are maybe 5B or even 6A.

Marc