I can certainly send you some seeds. We have only a couple hundred left from last fall’s bountiful harvest; we’ve been selling them at $6 for ten+ seeds shipped, $18 for 50+ seeds shipped, or $30 for 100+ seeds shipped, but I have offered anyone purchasing them through this forum a 30% discount.
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I could also offer a few Hachiya seed in exchange if you like mine have been stratified only about 30 days, need another 30 days in frig before planting. I donot sell mine but would be happy to buy yours just to get a few to plant locally. There are no native persimmons in this area. I miss having them.
Are yours stratified or ready to plant now?
Dennis
Mine are ready to plant now, some are sprouting already. Have you germinated your hachiya seeds before? Do you store them moist? Some seeds like pawpaw, and I’d only guess Persimmon, can’t dry out or they loose viability forever.
I have not germinated any hachiya seeds yet as they are still needing additional days to stratify. This will be my first season to try. I am storing them moist?
Any luck with rooting any cuttings yet?
Actually, if you are south of the Ohio River, it is likely a 60-chromosome type.
“There is a 90-chromosome American persimmon that is native to the northern U.S. and a 60-chromosome type that is native to Kentucky and the southern U.S. Most of the named varieties are of the 90-chromosome type. When named varieties of the 90-chromosome type are grown in Kentucky and are pollinated by the 60-chromosome type the seeds abort and many of the fruit are seedless or have few seeds. A few American persimmons, such as ‘Meader,’ are self-fruitful and will set seedless fruit”
Conventional wisdom says that the Ohio River is more or less the ‘dividing line’ between the 60 and 90-chromosome races. I’m well south of the Ohio… more or less right on the KY/TN line… so, all the natives in this area should be 60s…
The local American Persimmons down in Texas also tend to drop well before the first frost around November/December and are very gooey sweet (definitely not mealy) when they do. Which sounds like yours. So, I would assume that these Southern varieties (and yours) are actually 60-chromosome, then.
Howdy, I haven’t tried rooting any cuttings of persimmons before because from what I understand it’s impossible. I have been able to graft it onto other native suckers though, and once the sap starts flowing hard this late winter I’ll attempt lots of grafts.
I honestly have no idea how many chromosomes it has, I’m just going off of other people’s descriptions of them. I can see pretty clearly though that here we have many large, good textured persimmons, and we also have many small, mealy ones, although both have good flavor usually.
Mike Cartwright found a 2 to 2-1/4 inch sweet native persimmon growing on the Tensaw river a few years ago. He has made a few grafts. I know where a sweet native persimmon about 1-3/4 inch diameter is growing near the Tennessee river, coordinates are 34.834061,-87.948235.
Not impossible, but requires special considerations and success rate depends on the individual variety:
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Two grafts of Catawba Treasure. Very vigorous growth as some of my other grafts are just now breaking tiny leaves.
This is my first American graft to grow. The leaves are so much different. Small and shiny…very healthy looking.
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Super! I’m so glad they’re doing well for you so far! I had a few fruits the second year after my first graft and this year (the third year) it looks like there will be 20 or 30 fruits on that one; it has put on about 4-5ft of growth as of now with a graft union scion diameter of nearly 2 inches.
The parent tree has a beautiful weeping appearance because the leaves get quite large (almost as large as paw paw leaves) and dangle daintily on the already pendulous mature branches which have been trained to droop by yearly heavy fruit loads. Persimmon trees have to be one of the best all around trees; I put it right beside the Mulberry and chestnut, far ahead of most commercial fruit trees. Hardly another tree gives more output for so little input as a good American Persimmon. Just my opinion; I can’t get enough of them. There’s hardly as pleasing of a September sight as when I watch my herd of goats or sheep beat paths through the fields from Persimmon to Persimmon, and they do this til December! What a blessing of a tree.
Please keep us posted on those Catawba Treasures!
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Could you take a measurement of what the actual diameter of those are?
This is a really exciting persimmon to my mind. Did your grafts end up hanging on? Did you plant them out? How are they doing?
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@thecityman, yes I still have the three grafts and they all grew fairly well. They are all dormant now and I will be planting one out and looking to rehome the other two.
I have a bunch to rehome this year.
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This is an exciting one! I can’t wait to have enough scion wood to send to everyone. This tree grows wild just off the shoulder of the road in a cedar fence line; once every 5-10 years the highway department all of the growth that their equipment can reach and this tree gets knocked back pretty hard. But they actually left one 35 ft tall leader intact and cut the two 25 ft leaders down to about 3 ft tall stumps, which of course sent up adventitious sprouts like crazy. It’s also spreading by runners so I hope that tremendous disturbance by the mowers will give it more niches. I’ve got two clones of it in pots that I dug up this summer, so if they put out leaves this spring I’ll let them root into big pots out of the bottom of these smaller pots and just keep propagating them that way. I like trees on their own roots, call me old fashioned…
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I don’t have any on hand at the moment but there may still be some left under the tree to measure. The ones I have pictured above beside the quarter are all about the average size of them, some a little bigger and some a little smaller.
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Throwing my hat in the ring for a scion/ rooted clone when available in the next few years!
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Yea great! I’d love to know the average and max sizes for reference/comparison!
From the moment I saw the photos of this one I was excited. I have an unusual fondness for natural/wild persimmons for some reason, and I can tell you the location of probably 40 or more. I love to hunt and be in the woods and my parents own several plots of land in middle TN. I always pay close attention to where the persimmons and pawpaws are on each plot of land- not only because they are an attractor of wildlife but because they are just neat to me. But none of them are all that great to eat (I didn’t say I don’t enjoy a few of them when they are at the right stage) and definately none grow as big as Catawba Treasure. They also don’t look the same when cut as yours does. All the ones I know of are more stringy and dry. Yours looks fairly similar to my astringent Asians - of which I have or have had 5. varieties.
I have 2 small rootstocks right now already in place and growing in my orchard, and I’d sure love a chance to get some wood from you . If you see anything on my list (its on my profile) you like and you end up with some wood to trade, let me know. Otherwise I’ll see if I talk my friend @k8tpayaso into letting me be one of the 2 “rehome” spots for her grafted varieties!
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I hear ya, and I’m right there with you! I love looking at a wild landscape for cool trees; and I can spot persimmon trees in a tree line as if they were a hot air balloon. I’m so fortunate to live in a native persimmon hotspot; my small 22 acre farm has well over 100 wild ones! Like you, I’ve tasted them from nearly every tree I pass, and after a while you can basically look at one and tell whether the tree makes good ones or not. I’ve had a couple dozen wild ones that were worth returning to for some combination of flavor, consistency, color, or size, but this one right here is the only one I’ve ever found to combine all of those. Now personally, I like a persimmon with some spice, and this one is more smooth and sweet with tones of vanilla, so it’s not the tastiest one I’ve ever had, but I’d still give it a 9 out of 10 on flavor.
I’ll check out your profile for a barter, but either way I hope you get k8’s extra; wild persimmon enthusiasts are birds of a feather.
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