Who hasn't heard of persimmons?

[disc4tw]

@skline

Nikita’s Gift is self-fertile, always a good thing if one has room for only one tree.

Well, in a way, yes. Many female flowering persimmons are parthenocarpic, which isn’t exactly self fertile.

[disc4tw]

@BeeBlume

I know lots about persimmons and have grown both the astringent and non astringent varieties. But have never heard of pollination variant fruit. Can you say more?

This should answer a few of your questions and give you a bunch more to think about PCA / PCNA / PVA / PVNA / persimmons and what this all means

[jcguarneri]

Just to be sure, are you letting them soften fully? Like to the point where it almost seems like they may have gone bad? Most Americans, especially if they’re seedlings, need to be jelly soft to be non-astringent.

For more on individual persimmon varieties, this is a pretty good thread that’s been active lately:

If you could only grow one American Persimmon, which one?

So, I have a Prok that got decapitated by a rabbit and it is refusing to grow from its tiny scion, preferring to grow on its much larger rootstock. It’s only about 18 inches tall and planted about a year ago. Fall is coming and the stick is bare because I keep pulling out the rootstock shoots because it wont grow where it’s supposed to. Im not sure if it will winterize properly, come back next year, and most importantly, grow on its scion, so I was planning to just tear it out and plant a new ba…

[smsmith]

I’d wager less than 20% of Minnesotans have heard of persimmons.

[Shibumi]

I’d think awareness of persimmons would be obviously heavily weighted to more rural areas, especially considering it doesn’t ship well so if it’s not in your surroundings, you just don’t know.

Folks growing up in cities are more ignorant of the variety of anything they don’t see in stores.

Ignorant meaning lacking knowledge or unaware, not derogatory.

The further anyone is from the source of anything we consume, the less aware they are.

[smsmith]

@Shibumi

weighted to more rural areas

Maybe more rural areas south of say northern Illinois. No persimmons growing wild anywhere within a good number of hours of most of MN. FWIW…the vast majority of MN would be considered “rural”

[jcguarneri]

I think there’s more awareness of Asian persimmons in large cities. In the rural parts of my life, people were mostly aware of the American persimmons as the weird fruit that makes your mouth feel funny, or as deer bait. Even then, it was maybe 1 in 5 who knew about them. Asian persimmons were largely unheard of.

[Bethlehem]

Thanks for the thread referral. I’ll follow it.
I definitely let them ripen fully on the tree. They eventually turn from their beautiful orange to black and squishy, but horribly astringent.

[jcguarneri]

Yep, that does sound like you could do with a better variety!

[Bethlehem]

Thanks, I will.

[LarryGene]

A couple of years ago I saw persimmons by the pallet load in a Portland Asian grocery.
They were small and firm, some orange patches. Individual boxes were perhaps 10 pounds.