Sexing Persimmons

[danchappell]

I have a some four year old Fuyu seedlings. Still waiting for them to bloom.

[clarkinks]

Those Fuyu seedlings should be interesting! I’m going to graft these lotus over to early Golden I think. This is the thread where they bloomed for the first time Lotus persimmon buds. Interestingly the lotus survived -10F with no tip die back this year.

[Barkslip]

Clark,

Curious as to why you chose D. lotus instead of virginiana?

Only wondering.

I may have some persimmon wood you’d be interested in. ‘Mikkusu’ and ‘Kasandra’ and Lehman’s persimmons. We’ve talked about it before but Lehman’s persimmons are superb. Mikkusu and Kasandra should be excellent for your climate, however, I’ve not tasted these. Got some awesome wood recently… but my friend has it in his hands at the moment… but there was a substantial amount when I handed it over. The guy that sent it said they’re great persimmons. Might as well add variety.

Dax

[clarkinks]

It’s already 100 degrees here so I’m not sure the scions can handle the trip. The varieties sound interesting! I was just experimenting with the lotus persimmons and I have american aka Diospyros virginiana persimmons as well.

[Barkslip]

Grafted last year: 100-46 (Lehman’s Delight) with female flowers (no male flowers ever):

Dax

[clarkinks]

Dax,
Those are nice looking fat fruit buds on there! How big do they get? Here is another excellent post @RobThomas did on male persimmon flowers Are these persimmon flower buds?

[Barkslip]

They get big. I liked from Lehman’s orchard: H-63A, 100-46, & 100-42 the most.

Dax

[mamuang]

I hope mine are female flowers. It’s Nikita’s Gift. Lasy year, it had a couple of flowers but nothing set. This year, it has 12+ flowers like this so far.

[forestandfarm]

I stopped sexing my native American persimmons. I find I can get the first persimmons in the 3rd leaf after grafting which is sooner than an native female with produce if I find the tree at 1" in diameter or less. Whether I use scions from other proven native persimmons or named varieties, I know what I’m going to get.

[PharmerDrewee]

Those definitely look like female flowers. They are very “plump” in appearance.

[tonyOmahaz5]

NG only have female flowers.

Tony

[clarkinks]

Definitely female flowers Tippy @mamuang . Nikitas gift are female.

[mamuang]

i personally think that to learn about persimmons, their species types, reproductive types, fruit types, one would need a master degree for it

[RUenvsci]

Hopefully you’ll get a fruit or two from your twelve flowers. Taste is excellent, but NG has been very prone to fruit drop for me. I’m hoping yours hang on!

[mamuang]

I hope so, too. With my persimmon tree, if I look at it the wrong way, it sulks and drops fruit

[JesseS]

At least 3 of my persimmon trees are forming flower buds this spring, one is a seedling…finding this conversation zuseful and hope to definatively sex my trees in the next week or so.

[clarkinks]

Jesse,
If you have a picture we should be able to tell now.

@thecityman posted some good pictures in this thread of multisex persimmon which occurs more frequently than many people realize My persimmon is a boy....and a girl! (really). So if anyone is having a problem determining which you have remember it can be both.

[forestandfarm]

I realize that there are some perfect trees, but aren’t pretty much all named varieties of American persimmons (or hybrids) female? I don’t know a lot about oriental. Except for adding a male branch or two to a grafted female tree in areas outside the native range of persimmons, I’m not sure why folks would graft male scions.

I presume sexing persimmons is mainly for native trees, trees grown from seed, or ungrafted trees form a state nursery or similar.

Educate me…

[clarkinks]

Let’s say you plant 100 seedlings out of any type it let’s you know what your keeping, grafting over etc… the best varieties we have now of kaki x American hybrids had to be sexed to determine if your grafting now or waiting for fruit. Some need a male and in which case you need to sex the trees to make sure you have pollen.

[forestandfarm]

That makes sense, but those are seedlings, not named varieties. I understand sexing seedlings if you are trying to come up with something new. You and Tony said that NG was female. I’m primarily familiar with American persimmons and Tony was nice enough to get me started with some NGs. Every named variety that I’m aware of is female or perfect (having both male and female branches). I was just wondering if there was something different with Kaki or something I was unaware of with American where someone had for some reason had a named variety of male.