Worth growing American persimmon if Asian does well in your climate?

Hmm, so where’s the best place to get a Garretson seedling or seeds online? :stuck_out_tongue:

One Green World.

Do you happen to grow karmijn de sonnaville? If so how does it compare to suntan? Thanks!

I’ve grown Karmijn for 13 or 14 years. I recall the single apple it gave for its first crop to be maybe the best I’d eaten up to that time. I hadn’t cropped many apples at that point, so I don’t know where it would land were I to eat the same apple today. Since then, KdS has cropped most years, sometimes heavily, but has never delivered a single good apple. It cracks and rots badly and drops every fruit prematurely. Quite disappointing.

Many Cox offspring behave similarly here, including Holstein and probable parent, Ribston Pippen, neither of which I grow any longer. Suntan may be settling into a similar pattern, as the past two seasons it’s dropped it’s entire crop, which were all small, dry, cracked balls of cork. I topworked the entire KdS tree over to about a dozen Cox offspring last year except for a couple of small interior branches. Hopefully a handful produce edible apples for me.

The real winner among Cox babies here so far is Rubinette. It’s not as stunningly bold as Suntan or, by reputation, KdS, but it’s better balanced and amazing to eat.

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Well that pretty much answers all my questions. Thank you so much for taking the time to do that. I have rubinette, cox, medocino cox, suntan, and karmijn. Rubinette is the only one that fruited for the first time last year. With our record heat I was surprised but very impressed. Though the apples were small they were the best Id ever tasted up to that point. Im 5000 feet up in northern arizona. I feel we may have similar climates. What elevation are you at there?

I’m at 4700’. I grafted Mendocino Cox to the KdS tree last year (fingers crossed) but never bothered to graft Cox, given its poor reputation in hot climates.

I am curious, when does KOR bloom for you? I am asking because you are harvesting it significantly later than me. Last year was my first good crop, and it started dropping from the tree mid/late Aug and I continued picking till late Sep. However, I would say that fruit picked up to mid Sep were excellent (probably 80-90% of the crop) and ones picked in late Sep were getting mealy. Hence, this year I plan to pick the full tree by mid Sep. For me, it blooms end of April/early May.

I don’t closely track bloom dates for my fruit, but I do have a general feel for when my trees bloom. KOR in my orchard blooms in the same general window as yours.

I don’t recall ever picking it beginning in mid August or ever having it come off the tree mealy. In fact, I don’t recall it being mealy after a couple months in storage. Our climates are certainly different, but I’d expect early ripening and mealiness more in mine than yours. While I didn’t do an extensive search on KOR’s harvest period, reliable sources (Orange Pippin, Trees of Antiquity, Pomiferous, Cummins) all indicate it ripens late, or in Cummins’ case, midseason. I wonder if you are actually growing KOR.

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I prefer the flavor of American persimmon over kaki. I do like the size of kaki.

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Does this look to you like KOR?

It actually stores very well for me without losing flavor or texture, even on the counter for close to two months. However, the ones picked around Sep 20 had much less flavor than earlier ones. I wonder if it is a rootstock effect… mine is on G935.

I guess the definitive answer would be for us to exchange scions and graft each others :blush:.

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That does resemble KOR in my orchard. I’m happy to send you a stick this winter, if you like. I don’t like KOR here enough to even want to put in the small effort to graft it again to see if yours is the same apple. It doesn’t develop enough acid for me and is overly sweet as a result at the same or even less Brix than its cousin, Rubinette, which remains excellent out of my orchard. It also has some textural issues here: firm and not all that juicy. If my wife didn’t find it appealing, I’d topwork it to a third Rubinette tree.

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Thank you Neil! I will connect with you in the winter. I got mine from Cummins.

I have Rubinette too, which I like, but no one else in my household. We tend to like balanced and low acid fruit.

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Interestingly, out here in my hot dry climate, I find Rubinette has much better balance than KOR.

What is KOR?

Kidd’s orange red

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