Really impressed with this bad boy! Will need some time before he can be planted in the ground, thanks to everyone who recommended ordering from plant me green. The cost was incredible for such a healthy and developed plant!!
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Congrats. It’s a lady. NG only produces female flowers. I don’t have male flowers to help with fruit setting. My NG dropped almost all fruit every year.
If you don’t have male persimmon, you may want to think about grafting a stick of it to this tree next year.
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Thanks for the advice! I’m planning on planting it relatively close to a Meader that’s already in ground. Do you think that should be sufficient or will I still need some male pollen nearby
Isn’t Nikita’s Gift self-fertile?
It’s claimed by Raintree and Onegreenworld to be “self-fertile”.
It is parthenocarpic. Until it matures many including myself and @mamuang have experienced fruit set but drop prior to maturity. I’ve read this may resolve as the tree matures.
Mine better matures soon before I remove the darn tree. It was planted 8 years ago, I think.
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You may be right on it needing pollination. Mine is a dropper too and I’m really thinking about grafting it over.
Do y’all pick off fruits from the tree each season? Like selectively? The one at my school has to be selectively picked from while the fruits are undeveloped. But it also has a male planted only 10 feet away from it.
@Robert ,
Like Ryan said, it can produce fruit without male flowers. My tree is “special”, I mean specially picky.
It bloomed in year 3, all fruit dropped when it was smaller than a dime size.
Year 4 more flowers, all fruit dropped
Year 5 hundreds of flowers, lost all but 10 fruit
Year 6 hundred of flowers, lost all but 3
Year 7 thousand of flowers, all dropped (drought might played a role, too)
This is year 8
I don’t have male flowers nearby.
My other female persimmons are 30 -40 ft away.
Prok has no issue setting fruit on its own.
I should have grafted a male flower a while back but somehow lost yhe scionwood and has not replaced it.
Having a male partner will definitely help my NG hold on to its fruit more successfully.
There was no time to pick off fruit. As soon as petal fall, fruit start to drop. Some held on for more days to give me false hope and dropped.
My tree dropping fruit is not because it had too many. I am convinced it is a pollination issue. Yes, tree maturity played a role but not that big of a role.
I suspect tree maturity may have played more of a role than you might think! According to two separate growers I consider friends, year 8 was their first year harvesting a crop. This might be your bit year lol
Big year*
The tree knows that it is on a do or die list.
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Theoretically if one wanted to pollinate Nikita’s Gift, what cultivar of persimmon can do that?
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Because the flowers get pollinated, does the fruit have seeds?
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I grafted NG Kassandra JT02 so far this spring… on wild dv.
Have a IKKJ planted this spring too.
I have lots of wild dv males nearby… my wild persimmons are always loaded with seeds.
Does a wild dv male work for the NG fruit drop issue ?
Does that mean my NG (and other hybrids) will have seeds ?
Thanks
Probably any male flowering kaki or hexaploid virginiana male but YMMV.
What flowering kaki is male?
Chocolate, and Maru are 2 common ones that can be purchased online. There are plenty of more obscure selections out there that you’d have to graft yourself, but the scions are obtainable. Male flowering hybrids would also likely do the job too.
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