Hybrid Persimmons Future Look Great

Hi Clark,

You can get your wood from Jerry Lehman. I have his email or phone #. Send a message if you’re interested. It’s sort of fun/interesting talking with Jerry on the phone because his knowledge surpasses anyone else in the Unites States and I’m sure he’s a huge player in the world.

I’ve talked with him many times and he’s got the trees you want. He can tell you what’s best for your exact climate right off the top of his head.

Dax

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Tony brings up a good point that you probably need to help some of these hybrids and cold hardy kakis along for a few years to build up their cold tolerance. I’ve planted Korea Kaki for the past two winters, left them unprotected, and both times they died.

I also think it’s important to keep in mind that all grafted persimmons come on seedling rootstock. There’s a lot of variability in how cold hardy those rootstocks are too. I’ve had some American persimmon seedlings have a lot of die-back here in zonee 6. So if you can, I think it’s best to grow out rootstock for yourself and graft whatever you want on it, or do what Tony does and bury the graft union below the soil.

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@strudeldog,
Just growing something I hadn’t before to see how they would do here. Figured if I grew some of both rootstock by the time they were grown good hybrids would be available.
@tonyOmahaz5,
Thanks sounds like they are worth a try.
@Barkslip,
Thank you for the kind offer I’ve heard that name before. I will send you an email if I decide to go that route.

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Is this Kaki?

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Possible because the leaves are dark green and shiny.

Here is my JT-02 bark grafted on a 4 years old Knightville American persimmon understock. I did this graft in early May.

Tony

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Tony,
I grafted persimmon on May 2, they have just started growing like 1/2" growth. What do you feed your tree/graft with?

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Just the lawn fertilizer. I think the 4 years old understock and 4 1/2 feet up a large trunk really helps pushing growth on the graft. I literally had to rubbed of growth under the union every few days.

Tony

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That’s it, grafting on an established rootstock. Mine is on a branch of a relatively young Nikita’s Gift.

Last year it had a few flowers but they fell off. This year I saw one flower, probably will fall off again.

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Hi, I’m new here and share the same passion for persimmons and rare hybrids. I live in europ and have to say I am little bit jeallous :slight_smile: when I see how easy it is for you to get some new rare cultivars.

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I think hybrid persimmons might make a good rootstock for both kaki and american persimmons. For kaki because they might help prevent SPDS, which seems to be a delayed compatibility issue. For american persimmons because they might help dwarf the trees and keep them more manageable for an orchard setting. It’s something I’m going to experiment with going forward.

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I’ve never experienced SPDS with my kakis. But I’ve wondered the same thing. In fact, all of my new persimmon plantings are hybrids grafted onto D.V. rootstock. The D.V. rootstock is tolerant of my poor clay “soil,” but the hybrids are far more vigorous. I plan to use the hybrids as interstems for any future Kakis.

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I like that idea too, and would do it if I could graft persimmons with greater consistency. For now I’m growing out about twenty hybrid persimmons from seed and will use most of the males for rootstock.

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Here’s a photo of seven of my oldest hybrid persimmons. Most of them are three or four years old and about six feet tall. I’m hoping they’ll produce fruit in a year or two. They all have a male offspring of Rosseyanka as the pollen parent, and from there have various mixes of Giboshi, Honan Red, H-118, and Elmo.

These are two year old open pollinated Rosseyanka seedlings. You can see that they have much more of the American persimmon look to their leaves.

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Steven,

Looks very promising. What was the lowest temp these guys handled so far.

Tony

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Thanks Tony. -16 is the coldest, and that was when they were much smaller. I only kept the ones that had no die-back at all. So these should be able to survive down to zone 5. I know you had issues with Kasandra suffering winter damage, and I had repeated issues with Nikita’s Gift. These shouldn’t have that problem.

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I thought I’d post this photo of a ‘Roseyanka’ that I planted this June. It was probably about 8" at planting and this is a 4 ft tube. I’m just really impressed by the amount of growth it’s put on. It’s obviously going to be a little weak since the tree tube caused so much vertical growth in such a short amount of time but I’ll take it. A little less than 4 ft in 2 months. The other two ‘Roseyanka’ are nearly to the top of the 4 ft tubes and 3 ‘Kasandra’ are nearly there as well. It just got one application of fish emulsion. Now I’m just hoping the deer don’t eat the top off.

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If you check out Cliff England’s Facebook page, you’ll see some of his more recent hybrid efforts. Lot’s of good work being done by Cliff and company.

https://www.facebook.com/Kynuttrees/

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Here is my multi Bark grafted Hybrid persimmon. Nikita’s Gift, Rossyanka, JT-02, and dedicated one branch for Kassandra next Spring then the project will be completed.

Tony

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Does Nikita’s Gift taste good? It’ll be another year or two before mine fruits

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It tastes greater than some of the Astringent Kaki and also firm ripen and not mushy. It tends to drop fruits the first couple of years. Try not to fertilize it at all even the lawn fertilizer due to fruits drop.

Tony

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