http://www.groworganic.com/org...

My newsletter from Peaceful Valley this week had a great article on preserving persimmons.

If I had some persimmons! So this started me thinking I need to plant some persimmons. Actually, persimmons grow wild here in Alabama, and on one archaeological survey of some isolated woods one fall I ran across a grove of native persimmons.
They do like to grow in groves at the edge of a woods. On this particular day in the late fall, the persimmons were starting to ripen. A band of local possums decided to celebrate the event, by having a baseball game with the persimmons. They were all over the ground, I could just pick them up and stuff into my backpack, thanks to the possum pickers!

Persimmons are such a rare treat, but only available in late fall when they are smacked by the first frost. So the idea of preserving persimmons was an appealing one for me.

actually persimmons are just late ripening, the frost tale is just folklore. The frost actually hurts the fruits by destroying cell walls in the fruit but does remove some astringency. Where I'm at in SC most of the fruits ripen before the frost but some wild cultivars still have fruits on the limbs into november. If you are thinking about growing persimmons there are many american selections that do well in colder parts of the US and will ripen before the first frost. if you live in zone 7 or higher you can try your luck with an asian persimmon and you'll get much larger fruits, However they are prone to leafing out early and suffer from late frost damage some have been known to die because of late frosts. American persimmons leaf and flower later but require both male and female plants to get fruit and it can take upwards to 8 years from seed to tell what you got. there are 2 types of american persimmons diospyros virginiana L that grows wild anywhere north of KY and diospyros virginiana S which grows everywhere south of KY. The diospyros virginiana L produces larger persimmons hints the L and is what's used in most breeding work today. The diospyros virginiana S which is smaller hints the S, has a different chromosome count then L and allows growers to get seedless fruit if using a S male to pollinate a L female. Everyone should have a few persimmon trees if the space is available. native trees reach upwards to 40 ft or more if left unpruned, but the asians are much smaller typically not growing over 20ft and easily maintained to 12 or 14ft. I have some stratified diospyros virginiana S seeds in the fridge ready to be planted out if you'd like some but I'd suggest purchasing plants so you know what you get instead of going with seedlings. nuttrees.net, burntridge.com, raintree.com, groworganic.com, and ediblelandscaping.com are all trusted web based retailers that offer a great varitey of persimmons. I only grow seedlings for rootstocks for my cultivated plants to be grafted onto. persimmon are one of the hardest plant to propagate via grafts and won't root via cuttings or layering this is why they cost so much from retailers. for me success rates hover around 20- 30% and what don't take gets tried again next year. I hope this helps and If you decide you want to try growing from seed just let me know I'll be happy to send you some just cover the postage is all I ask or we can do a trade if you are interested.

Are both the northern and southern types equally astringent? Thanks so much for the generous offer, but I am not set-up for seed management quite yet. I hope to have my greenhouse in shape one of these years though.

unfortunately they are equally astringent until ripe. There are a few hybrids of american and asian persimmons on the market but even the hybrids are astringent until ripe. However with a renewed interest in native edibles like persimmons and pawpaws gaining back popularity it wouldn't surprise me if a non astringent american hybrid is one day available. maybe even interspecific hybrids of black sapote and persimmon may be possible. Right now most non astringent persimmons are grown commercially in zone 8 and up but there are some homeowners who have successfully grown them in zone 6b via microclimates. A non astringent american hybrid that can be grown commercially as far as zone 6 would be a huge game changer and open new markets for colder climate farmers.

Having lived a while, I notice that the old varieties of fruit lose their taste when hybridized. Don't know if that's true of persimmons. We had Wold River apples back home in Michigan--the trees are still producing, but rarely picked on the back of the property. Ive never found apples that taste quite the same as apples off the tree--no wax, no shellac, just the way they were for 100 years or more.

Most fruits you find in the store are bred for shipping and storage to reach a larger audience not so much taste. There are tons of new fruits however for home gardens that have remarkable taste but the fruits aren't sold in stores because of their short shelf life or are not easily harvested by machine. Please don't let the word hybrid fool you, many great things have been made by hybridizing. I hear marketing people say things like " with a heirloom taste" WTH is a heirloom taste? Don't get me wrong I'm all for preserving old or almost lost varieties but some modern fruits have traits the old ones can't hold a candle to. Take blueberries for example many growers love wild blueberries and say there is none better. Evidently they never tasted Star, Sweetcrisp, or Ravens. For thousands of year man has searched for larger, sweeter, and more productive fruits then breed them to make even larger, sweeter, more productive fruits.

Good perspective. I tend to be a traditionalist myself--theoretically. But then I haven't tasted the varieties you mention. Ill keep an eye out for them. Any tips on growing blueberries in the South? Have you grown bilberry?

Bilberry will not survive my hot summers here in zone 7b/8 I have enough trouble just keeping the honeyberries healthy looking in summer. I'm not sure what zone you are in but in my area blueberries are successfully grown with irrigation and mulch along with proper soil preparation. I know being a permie you hate to hear the word irrigation but blueberries are very shallow rooted and naturally live in moist environments with tons of rainfall and decent draining organic rich soil with a low ph. At the same time they don't like to sit in water either. It's easy to keep deeper soil moist using swells but the top 6 inches is a challenge for many who are plagued with drought in summer. I planted over 200 blueberries about 150 were planted without irrigation to test and see if they would survive. Out of those 150 only about 10 are still hanging in. The others were planted in raised beds or in pots and are watered often and doing just fine. My native blueberries do well along the woods edge but they only produce about 1-1.5 lb of fruit per mature plant. Commercial blueberries don't make a good candidate for permaculture design in my area but are well worth growing if you can supply the extra water needed because they average 10-25lbs per mature plant depending on cultivar and growing conditions. There are both high chill and low chill varieties. If in zone 8 or higher you should go with low chill cultivars if in zone 6 or colder I'd go with high chill but those of us in zone 7 can get the best of both worlds. I would imagine Alabama gets a good bit of precipitation off the gulf so they may work in a permaculture design better for you it's really all about trial and error because each place is different even if in the same hardiness zone. I hope this helps.

Anyone else growing any named american persimmons?

I've planted them for both wildlife and orchards. If you want a few, choose carefully. To get a number of them started, my first step was always the same... Order bare rooted trees by the gross from my state nursery. If for wildlife, just plant heavily and expect some losses. For orchards in the cheap, join your state's fruit and/it nutgrower guys and participate in Scion swaps. Once your seedlings take root, you have a black canvas on which to experiment. A good many folks have gone this route for persimmons. Select varieties by harvest time, taste, etc.

BTW,
https://www.persimmonpudding.c...

A lot of reasons young persimmon trees die is because the tap root is cut by the grower when the trees are dug. Its best to direct sow seeds or sow them in deep pots and graft over them later if you choose to do so. If you are wanting to grow the seedlings out to mature trees and not graft them then having a good seed source like Cliff England is important. You'll want to grow the 90 chromosome persimmons for their larger fruit and with other places you stand a better chance of getting 60 chromosome seeds. I have about 200 persimmon trees including grafted hybrids, kakis, Americans, and a ton of American and hybrid seedlings. Are any of your seedling trees fruiting age? I'd love to see some photos of your fruit this year if you get a chance to snap some. Persimmons are weired in the fact that only about 2 out of ever 10 seedlings will become females. With others trees it's normaly a 50/50 chance on getting a male or female but with persimmons 80% of all seedlings tend to be males and males don't fruit. This is what cliff England told me and what me and several others have noticed as well.

I have two Chocolate Persimmon trees. One is hale, lovely and covered in persimmons, and the other, I shouldn't have, but I bought it to "make it all better." It hasn't gotten all better. I think there was too much coir in the potting mix or something. I transplanted it. The leaves are no longer lemon yellow, but they are far from the lime green they should be.

I love my (healthy) Chocolate Persimmon, and recommend it highly. It is difficult to find, at least around here. I was told this variety is self fertile, which the healthy one is, but looking it up, it doesn't look to be true for chocolate persimmons in general. I'm in zone 8, and the article I'm reading says zone 11. In fact, the more I read, the more it looks like my "chocolate" persimmon isn't. Okay, so now I haven't any idea what I have, but I love it!


I did not know that about the 20/80. I'm not a fan of grafting, but with those odds, I can understand why the industry grafts to ensure they get what they want!

Chocolate has both male and female flowers. In spring you can tell the differwncw because males are in groups of 3. Chocolate is called so because when pollinated its flesh will turn brown if you ever cut one open and its orange don't eat it, it will be asteigent.the orange ones can still be eaten but must be eaten soft to be sweet the brown fleahed ones will be sweet even when hard. I have Chocolate but it likes to leaf out early and gets hit by frost often in my area. This year I may get about 30lbs of fruit from my Chocolate tree. One word of advice is if you plan on adding others and want seedless fruits from your other trees avoid planting them near chocolate or your other fruits will have seeds.

The one you are seeing that is only hardy to zones 10 and 11 is Black Sapote (Diospyros nigra) chocolate pudding fruit. They are a cousin to your chocolate kaki persimmon.