A friend with decades of all plants knowledge grew Meader in/near Minneapolis. I asked him about it and he said, “Grew it from 1998 to 2011. It died that winter not from low temperature (it had easily survived colder temps before), but from some other “non-normal” factor(s). Every spring I would wonder if it had died because it leafed out so very very late. Never did find out if that was normal for the species (this is a hint, please…), I wondered if it was a perennial winter root damage problem. Anyway, it never had any winter twig dieback, and after the first year or two of sparse fruiting, it was quite prolific, and the fruit incredibly yummy. Up here, the fruit pretty much stays on the tree, even into December, and in my expreience, it ages and candies up best while on the tree.”
I would recommend you buy the largest tree you can for Spring planting.
Update on my persimmons after a very snowy, yet mild (-13F)winter- no tip dieback on any of them, but significant SW injury on many of my grafts. This has happened before, but I didnt recognize it. Vertical splits in the bark, around 1-2’ up from the ground (still plenty of grafted material below to regrow), in some cases the damge looks like it will girdle the shoot. This damage occurs on 1st year wood, and I now know that I should paint my young 'simmon trunks before winter. Strangely, similar sited, sized seedlings do not have this issue. Grafting well above the snow line might be another way to aviod this scenario.
This year we had a snow pack that went up 3.5’, but the damaged zone was around 1.5’ from soil line. So the SW injury must have happened early or (later) in the season. Still plenty on the ground now, and guess what…snowing again now! Gotta love spring in Maine.
I have never seen snow at 40F it was super crazy then we dropped down to 33 for about 3 hours before finally heating up to around 60F. Freaky weather this spring.
I hope painting your trees will help reduce the winter injury and this storm don’t dump too much more snow on you.
Jesse Glad your trialing some seeds for your area
I may have a few
Barkslip In Lisle Mortum Arboretum has a tree must be 75 years old at least
it is on the way on the road as you drive up they ripen there.
I often have to bring that up to people, that think they will not grow here.
I do not have land for growing out a bunch but
I am also trying to see what seeds do best may graft over , but leave a branch to see if some are Okay
I might just wild plant these or sell around here as neighbor hood trees
I like the story of one avocado one guy just grew avocado ,and found some good varieties by just giving seed tree’s to all his neighbors. (the internet is not being the best source right now , but I thought it was yates by memory)
aand hass was suppose to be grafted over
and the nursery man said he should of left it because the graft broke and the tree was vigourous
edit I hope doesn’t seem off topic
just think it’s nice to keep a eye on a tree if it seems to be a vigorous grower,
(dark thick leaves might be a tetriploid extra chromosomes or otherwise doubled)
Oh, and these seeds can be eaten baked like Pumpkin seeds( or sautte perhaps)
(not tried yet I would of but got my wild mixxed up with ones I wanted to trial outside,)
Also pressed for oil.
Not sure if this can help,but
In Indiana there was a tree they were falling, but I took some that weren’t ready They were Hard
I stored in my fridge for at least 2 months in a sealed ziplock bag (maybe 4), and they ripened on there own.
I mean I thought there was No hope (pretty unripe)
(IF I had a rope I would of shaken them out the tree so that’s why I grabbed the rock hard ones.)
Of coarse some simmons in Japan are put in a basket with Alcohol just in the bottom
the ethylene ripens them.
Thought of taking a bucket , and trying that If I get some not ready I will
or there is the old put in a papper bag with a banana for the ethylene done it with other stuff.
Should at least try a few in a zip lock that are not ripe for a few months.
(nothing else added in it when I did it) they were good, and had them late so that’s good.
All that can be tricky the late Lon Rombough (of bunch grapes) (and on grape breeder forums)
had grapes he grew from seeds (not sure if open pollintaed )
Said one of his grapes started out slow, and then grew very good
so small yields to doing good.
Had a Friend growing annuals all the same type of breed (like a heirloom)
one didn’t grow right dwarf lagged behind the rest
Some type of Mutation from the rest plant turned out a very interesting herb he said.
One of my Pawpaws had a Set of two extra roots (best growing)
wanted to name it arrow if any good – But big roots
I have a bit of good news to report from the cool Catskill region of Upstate NY for a persimmon grower wannabe. My first female blossoms have opened here at the beginning of July. There was a male tree that blossomed last year. I did note last Fall that this female tree did yellow her leaves in a seasonally correct manner, instead of merely having them toasted at first hard frost. That gives me hope that she is synchronized to the short growing season here.
On a sad note, my grafts seems to have largely failed. There are a few that might have a chance yet. I did an inverted T-bud on all of them, unwrapped them after two weeks. I´m thinking I should have left the inner clear plastic layer on, to preserve moisture and some pressure, and removed only the outer Coban layer.
Thanks! I hadn´t thought of that. I confess, my first thought was : nice, but I don´t have access to any greenwood that I would want. On second thought I did set out some purchased grafted persimmons : Juhl, John Rick, 100-46, & Prok. I could take from those – I have had zero success with overwintering purchased grafted trees anyway – after multiple tries – so odds are that these will be toast as well. Maybe I could get them to survive by doing as you suggest onto my established seedling trees.
I did another assessment of my grafted buds. Several might still have potential if I could just shock the buds awake. I had trimmed the stock tree to one limb above the buds to keep the sap flowing – but I went back through and trimmed the remaining branches away to hopefully stimulate them into growth.
