It’s more than 5, but @Barkslip made some convincing descriptions that I took to heart when choosing my own trees to graft.
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Though I might not prefer their texture on its own, I am confident I would happily tolerate “gooey” persimmons for the reward of exceptional flavor. Just not too many of them!
Like you, my trialing has been guided so far by what I’ve read over a period of several months on GF. The fact that this very helpful information is scattered among many different posts was one of my motivations for starting this topic. I thought it would help both myself and others to have the essential information - Top 5 persimmon variety names - in one place. More than 5 is fine! Or Top 5 of both astringent and non-astringent types. One can use such brief lists as a springboard for further investigation using the Search function.
Thanks for categorizing the options as you did, it helps to cover all the bases.
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Lena and Morris Burton have the greatest flavor of all American persimmons. 100-46 is very late and can be added to the mix. 100-46 is huge and has a texture that’s completely different and incredible flavor. There are so many that could be called top 5. H-63A and Barbara’s Blush are definitely in the top 5.
Everyone should have JT-02 for a hybrid, although, I have not eaten it.
If you want persimmons hanging thru winter for ‘winter popsickles’ then plant Deer Candy or Deer Magnet. I’ve eaten Deer Magnet & it’s very-good. Deer Candy is assumed to be as good from anything I’ve ever read.
Add in the others available and there’s a lot more than (5) excellent choices for an American persimmon.
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This makes me wonder if breeding Morris Burton with Saijo might be a worthwhile project… The best of astringent persimmons from around the world should make pretty tasty offspring…
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I’ve thought about it 10 times in the past 3-days since discussing persimmon breeding. I already have both.
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This is the problem and then I’m bombing out/away from this thread cause I’m not changing the flow of it. If anyone would like to read more about persimmon breeding, there’s a thread already:
Is a non-astringent American-Asian hybrid persimmon within reach?
@PharmerDrewee explained the problem of KAKI xAMERICAN to me via a message:
“growing kaki in areas where virginiana are native normally still have seedless fruit unless there’s a male kaki nearby. I believe what’s done is embryo rescue, which yielded JT-02. However, hybrids seem to readily cross between themselves, and back to virginiana or kaki with few issues. This is how all those hybrid seedlings Cliff England has growing out came about.”
Then it has to known/remembered that the northern clade of American Diospyros virginiana is the one to use (thankfully!) because it’s hexaploid. The ploidy of American x Kaki must be hexaploid. Southern American persimmon is a tetraploid. It’s chromosome count that need to be: hex (x) hex and knowing the northern (hexaploid) American persimmon race is cold-hardier, that makes all the difference in creating hardy-hybrids.
Edited for chromosomes/ploidy-count
Dax
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Dax, just 1 correction. That last part should be reversed. The Northern virginiana are hexaploid as are kaki. You have the right idea though.
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My favorite is Garretson. I like Prairie Star H118 almost as much, but it produced nothing this year when we got 116F heat. Garretson still produced. I was surprised to find that Szukis was really good tasting this year. This is only after I biocharred it. The fruit stayed on the tree through all the heat. It tasted as good as my best persimmons, but they are so tiny that it’s hard to say it’s as good. I have a couple of others but they arent’ as good.
JohN S
PDX OR
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If you want a persimmon for drying hachiya is excellent for this. Slice on mandolin while still firm the dehydrating removes astringency makes one of the better dried fruits you can have. Not sure your climate hachiya likes heat
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Thanks for the contributions so far, everyone! Since my hope is to get “Top 5” (at least) recommendations - @JohnS and @GeorgiaGent, do you each have 4 others that you think are great varieties? I am hoping that some long-time “persimmoners” like @aap and @tonyOmahaz5 might opine, too.
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@Yoda – Just to clarify, are you looking for varieties that are likely to survive in your location? That dramatically narrows the Asian field, eliminating Hachiya I think.
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I really prefer the complex flavor of the American persimmons. I could buy Asian persimmons in the store, but I can’t find Americans. Too soft when ripe.
I have enjoyed Meader and Ruby, but found them to be not quite up to Garretson or Prairie Star when it holds the fruit. The reason I bought Szukis is because in the Claypool trials, the quality of the fruit was heavily dependent upon the male pollinator and Szukis was the best of those that I can remember.
John S
PDX OR
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Persimmons have been misunderstood so much.
The persimmons you buy at store are almost all the non-astringent persimmons. Sure they are Asian persimmons. But they are mainly Japanese style, picked hard and unripe. It is similar to the hard tomato you can buy at store.
But most of the Asian persimmons are the traditional astringent persimmons that you can’t find sold at stores. They are actually very similar to American persimmons if allowed to ripen off the trees.
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@Red Star. I agree with you that there are a lot of good quality Asian persimmons that you will never see at the store. Saijo, for example, tastes good and you’ll never see it there. I’ve also had many others. Yes, they tend to be the astringent ones. I still just prefer the American ones due to their complex flavors. I’m not saying that everyone else should agree with me. It’s just what I prefer. There are a lot of places where only American persimmons are grown, and down in much of California, they only grow Asian persimmons. We grow both kinds here. I think everyone should try many of each to see what they would like to grow and eat.
John S
PDX OR
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@ JohnS
Have you tried Kassandra? It is 75% Chinese and 25% American. It is hardy and full of flavor. Texture is probably similar to American too. The size is probably between Chinese and American persimmons too.
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I am personally most interested in what I could grow in my 6b location, yes. But at the same time, it would be nice if this topic could be useful to many folks, maybe down to zone 5b or 6a, and up to zone 8. The only way that can happen is if those living in a variety of zones, and who have successfully grown several kinds of persimmons, mention which types had the best taste for them. It would fall to the reader to determine what has a good chance of successfully growing in their area. Is this an achievable goal? I am resigned to the fact that some folks’ favorites would not make it in my neck of the woods.
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Absolutely!! And it makes sense to first try those that have good reports from others.
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@ Red Sun: I haven’t tried Kassandra. I like Nikita’s Gift. They come out with new varieties every year and I can’t taste all of them, but I would like to.
John S
PDX OR
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I’m trying to stay accurate with this information on provenance. Can you help me with the arithmetic? I believe that Kassandra is 50% Chinese Kaki (Great Wall) on one side, then the rest is F2 Rosseyanka back-crossed to D. Virginiana. So I think that would be 37.5% unnamed D. Virginiana and 12.5% unnamed D. Kaki, probably Japanese but I really don’t know. How do you get to 75% Chinese? Thx.
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