OK so I got a call from Schlabach’s Nursery and they have a American Persimmon seedling that they can ship with rest of my order. They don’t have a grafted variety just these seedlings. I want to still buy it from them since I’m getting other stuff from them and don’t have to pay extra shipping. I don’t have enough space for two trees for pollination so I will have to plant this seedling and graft on to it. but I have some questions and would like to run this by the group. Is American persimmon edible or is it only used as rootstock? If I plant American persimmon, can I graft any variety on to it? Will this “new tree” be just as hardy as American Persimmon. I mean what determines the hardiness, rootstock or the variety grafted on it? This winter our temps dipped down to 5 degrees. But I think in a normal winter we shouldn’t go below 10.
Do you see any downside to buying this and grafting on to it?
I’m sorry if these questions have been answered. I haven’t had a chance to read up on this yet.
American persimmons are edible…but you have to make sure they are ripe. And seedlings will vary greatly. ((AND…they are male and female…so with a seedling you might get a male, but even if you get a female, you may not get fruits unless someone in the area has a male tree either in their orchards or in a hedgerow or overgrown fallow field.
As far as we can tell, Am Persimmons don’t need pollination to fruit, although the state of knowledge isn’t that great. You definitely risk getting a male, but it can be used as a rootstock for any other American or Asian (although you’ll need to be careful checking for the hardiness of your Asian variety.)
Susu
You can graft Yates or Prok to it later. They will produce tasty large fruits without pollination.
Tony
As long as you graft when it’s starting to leaf out they’re not terribly difficult either
Thanks all for responding. So compatibility wise I shouldn’t have any problem grafting s Fuyu persimmon on American ?
That’s great. I will buy it then,
You shouldn’t have a problem at all. However, based on what others say here, you should wait to graft until the rootstock starts to leaf out. I’ll be grafting for the first time late this spring.
I have two male American persimmon. And while they don’t produce any fruit, they do produce a massive amount of flowers. The bees absolutely love them. My honeybees don’t pay much attention to all my fruit trees, but they are all over the persimmon flowers.
They also grow incredibly fast, and make a nice looking lawn tree. I was going to graft them over, but glad I didn’t. I have several other fruit producing persimmon trees.
True fuyu is not a good canadit for American persimmon rootstocks. There is some info on the net about it I can’t remember in full details but it may be worth looking into before you graft fuyu.
Nevermind that was with lotus
@ediblelandscaping.sc While you’re here, I’ve got a Hana Fuyu and Rosseyanka from you. What rootstock are they on? I always just assumed American.
There are some rules to follow to successfully graft persimmons. Read threads on this forum that discuss this subject.