One of my priorities this offseason is to add a persimmons tree to my orchard. I don’t know too much about them. I’ve only ever had Fuyu from supermarkets. I’ve heard great things about Saijo. I’ve read about the whole astringent vs. nonastringent comparison. Any variety recommendations for my climate? If there is good reason to have more than one variety, I’m open to that.
Just about any will do well in 7b. I like the astringents better. To me the fuyu is kind of tasteless. If you have room try one of each.
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Any reason to get Saijo over Giombo, or vice versa?
Fruit for giombo are bigger.
I have wild persimmons, but they are about half seeds, half pulp, smallish fruit… tasty but hardly worth it. I do like them and I am going to pick some more this evening… I have a small tree just up our county road that looks to have a couple hundred fruit on it.
But I have been considering adding a named variety at some point. I think my main goal would be larger tasty fruit, with no to low seeds.
PS. I am in 7a - Tennessee…
I checked out the Saijo variety you mentioned on Starks… (link below).
The fruit Pic on their website is much longer top to bottom than my wild fruit… looks like it would be much meatier, more good fruit, and it says “few to no seeds”.
Where it list the fruit size it says Small/Med.
Could any of you be more specific on that ? perhaps average weight in grams ? 50 ? 100 ?
One of the reviews on the Starks website says that about them…
I would hate to buy a named variety… and grow it several years and end up with something no better than the wild ones I have. Having less seeds would be nice… but I want some size too. Eat one or two and done would be nice.
TNHunter
I believe Saijo is earlier ripening.
It sounds like the Starks review was for a tree than actually was an American persimmon, either a mislabeled tree or some other kind of mix up or a tree that died back and regrew from the rootstock.
Any Asian persimmon variety that doesn’t produce male flowers (which is most Asian persimmon varieties) should produce fruit that has few to no seeds so long as you don’t also plant/graft any pollinators (which there are reasons to want but generally speaking people prefer to avoid). I like Saijo fruit a lot. I don’t know that I see any particular advantage to larger fruit, especially in the absence of seeds. What I don’t like about Saijo is that in my experience all three of the trees I’ve grafted to Saijo have been extremely non-precocious, especially in comparison to other Asian persimmon varieties which are generally quite precocious. The growth habit also seems especially vertically inclined which I don’t love. But the fruit is excellent.
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My saijo has not fruited yet, but I will give it credit for growth. It is easily the fastest growing persimmon out of the seven varieties I have. A major plus when you consider how slow persimmons grow.
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Check out the descriptions on www.nuttrees.net for England’s Orchard and Nursery. They have a lot of excellent varieties available.
@cousinfloyd … thanks for the details…
and @disc4tw … I have a Che I got from Englands… and I went to the web site and read thru a bunch of his persimmon variety descriptions… makes me want to try several… I have plenty of room… may have to try one that ripens early and another later.
Since you have a bunch of established trees, I highly recommend grafting to a few of them and taking advantage of the established rootstock. England’s has scions of most persimmons (if not all) that they sell.
@disc4tw … all my established trees are over in the edge of my field… in the woods edge.
My sister has a couple nice older trees in her yard. You may have seen a post I did on those.
Do you think I could successfully dig up a smaller wild seedling… and move it out to full sun location ? I hear they have a significant tap root.
I found one in the edge of my field about 5 ft tall… thought I might try relocating one like that… and then graft onto it.
If that is risky… I dont mind at all just buying a barefoot named variety to start with.
@TNHunter, D. virginiana sends up root suckers as far as 50 feet from the mother tree. I wouldn’t be surprised if what you think is a seedling is actually one of these root suckers if you have mature trees nearby. I’ve transplanted a dozen or more persimmon root suckers during the winter when they’re dormant and then grafted to them. Most of these transplants survive, and the oldest trees that I grafted are starting to produce fruit now. Sometimes during the summer I take a spade and push it into the ground in a circle around the sucker I’m planning to transplant to sever the horizontal roots and hopefully encourage more small roots to grow closer to the base of the tree in advance of transplanting during dormancy. But this probably isn’t absolutely necessary.
The transplanted tree might need a little watering the following summer. I would also recommend waiting to graft until the following year after transplanting and give it a little more time to establish itself in the new location first. I’ve grafted the same year I transplanted, but those grafted trees tend to be slower growing and take longer to fruit. When you graft to an established rootstock, the scions can easily grow 5 or 6 feet in the first year after grafting.
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Seems like Giombo is superior then.
@ncdabbler — thanks for the tips on the persimmon root suckers… I will check for those.
It may be a year or two before I plant any… we are going to build a new home, and sell our current place… so when I am starting it all over again that is when I will be looking to add persimmon.
That one small tree just up our county road that I visited the other evening… it was around 6 ft tall, quite bushy, growing in the edge of the woods, but getting some pretty good sun (5-6 hours or so).
It is a young tree but this year bloomed nicely and set a couple hundred fruit.
They were smaller than the ones I got off my sisters LARGE trees… but they were very pretty fruit, and many looked to be perfectly ripe.
Very soft, squishy, and the first one I tried, wow what flavor… they tasted even better than my sisters tree fruit… very good flavor… but just about the time I got the seeds out of the pulp and started swallowing the pulp… WOW the astringency hit… whole mouth pucker big time.
It was like a delayed reaction… that did not happen with my sisters tree fruit at all… I ate several of them and good flavor and on most no astringency at all… on some just a bit that was a bit noticable after eating them (like a minute later).
But WOW these from the smaller tree… and YES I tried a second one to see if that was a fluke or something… but NO… it tasted so good… and it took me a good 15-20 seconds to sort out the seeds (in my mouth) and swallow the pulp… but again right after that… WOW… extreme astringency hit.
That may be a common thing for persimmons… to occasionally look really ripe, and for the first 20-30 seconds taste wonderful… and then BAM.
I was not expecting that, after that initial so good taste…
Astringency is sort of a pain with persimmons. I may have to consider a non-astringent variety.
TNHunter
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Did you wait till they were nearly completely mushy? Or did you still eat them when they had firmness?
@JustPeachy … I only picked the ones that were soft… there are several on the tree yet that are orange but still firm.
I only tried the very mushy ones… only 2.
Wowed by the initial flavor… but then 30 seconds later Ouch…
In my experience, that means those weren’t mushy enough.
Some [not all] of the american persimmon near me need to be almost fall apart type soft. Some of them are still firm enough that I can gather them collect them in a bag without them getting smashed and eat without any astringency.
Others, I can’t even put two in a bag without them completely turning into mushy pudding paste. I need to pick them off the tree (so they don’t splat on the ground), and lay them all out flat on a tray. They are that soft.
Alternatively, you can pick them firm or still soft. Try one, if they are still astringent, leave them on the counter to further ripen on their own or ripen with cheap vodka vapor.
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They were as soft as the fruit from my sisters trees… just a bag of very squishey pulp and seeds… but wow that delayed astringency.
I do still have the rest on the counter…
May get brave enough to try them again in a few days. They really are mush already and some did stick together in the bag I brought them home in.
@JustPeachy …Well you were right… I tried them again just now… great flavor… hardly any astringency left. Just needed a few more days on the counter.