Gadenin日本語Get the appKnow which type you have planted
Before anything else, find out whether your tree is an astringent type or a non-astringent type. This is the single fact that governs the rest of your relationship with the tree. Astringent fruit is loaded with soluble tannin and is genuinely inedible while firm; one bite dries your whole mouth out and the sensation lasts twenty minutes. It only becomes sweet once the flesh has gone to the texture of jelly, or after it has been deliberately treated or dried. Non-astringent fruit loses its tannin on the tree and is eaten firm and crisp, like an apple.
You cannot tell the two apart by looking at the tree, the leaf or the flower. Shape is a rough hint only: many non-astringent types are squat and flat-bottomed, while many astringent types are pointed or heart-shaped. The label on the tree is the reliable answer, so copy it into your records the day the tree arrives, because the label will fade or fall off long before the first crop.
The type also decides where the tree can succeed. Non-astringent types need a long, warm autumn to shed their tannin properly; in a short or cool season they stay puckeringly astringent and disappoint people who assumed they had bought a crisp-eating tree. Astringent types are less fussy about heat, because you are going to soften or dry the fruit anyway, so in a cooler garden they are the safer choice.
| Trait | Astringent type | Non-astringent type |
|---|---|---|
| Eaten when | Soft as jelly, skin translucent | Firm and crisp, like an apple |
| Picked when | Full color, still hard, then ripened off the tree | Full color, left on the tree as long as possible |
| Tannin | Stays soluble until flesh softens or is treated | Becomes insoluble on the tree |
| Needs a long warm autumn | No | Yes, or the fruit stays astringent |
| Good for drying | Yes, the classic use | Poor, too little sugar concentration |
| Fruit typically | Pointed or heart-shaped | Flat, squat, four-sided |
If your tree is unlabelled, do not guess from shape. Wait for the first crop, pick one fruit at full color and bite it. The answer arrives in under a second and you will never need to ask again.
Choosing the spot
Persimmons want full sun, six hours a day as a minimum and eight if you can give it. In shade the tree grows perfectly happily and simply makes no fruit buds, which is the most frustrating way for a fruit tree to fail. Autumn sun matters as much as summer sun, because the last few weeks of hanging time are what build sugar and, on non-astringent types, what removes the tannin.
Drainage is the hard requirement. The tree tolerates heavy soil far better than most fruit trees but will not tolerate standing water over the roots. Fill your planting hole with water; if it has not drained away within about twelve hours, plant on a raised mound eight to twelve inches (20-30 cm) high rather than in a hole. Soil pH between 6.0 and 7.0 suits it, and it is not fussy about fertility.
Shelter matters more than for most fruit trees, because persimmon wood is brittle. The branches snap under their own crop, and a windy site adds the leverage that finishes the job. Avoid open, exposed corners and the downwind side of a gap between buildings. Give a standard tree fifteen to twenty feet (4.5-6 m) of clear space, and a tree kept small by pruning ten to twelve feet (3-3.6 m). Roots run wide and shallow beyond that, so keep the ground under the canopy free of competition.
Getting the tree into the ground
Persimmons make a strong, brittle taproot with few fine feeder roots, which is why a bare-root tree looks so unpromising when it arrives and why it sulks if that taproot is torn or bent. Plant dormant, in the window between leaf fall and bud swell, and work fast so the roots never dry out. A container tree can go in whenever the ground is workable, but it still establishes best planted dormant.
- Dig deep enough for the taproot to hang straight Unlike most fruit trees, this one needs depth as well as width. If the taproot will not fit, shorten it cleanly with a sharp cut rather than curling it round the bottom of the hole. A bent taproot never straightens and the tree stays unstable for years.
- Backfill with the soil you dug out Do not enrich the hole with compost or fertilizer. A rich pocket in poor ground makes roots circle inside it instead of pushing out. Save compost for a surface mulch, kept two inches (5 cm) clear of the trunk.
- Keep the graft union clear of the soil Find the swollen kink low on the trunk and set the tree so it sits three to four inches (8-10 cm) above the finished soil level. Buried, it roots above the graft and you lose whatever the rootstock was doing for you.
- Firm in stages and water in heavily Add soil in layers, firming each with your heel. Then give at least four gallons (15 L) slowly, even in wet weather. That first watering is not about moisture; it is what collapses the air pockets around a coarse root system.
- Cut the leader back at planting On a whip or a young feathered tree, shorten the main stem to about three feet (90 cm). This forces low branching. A persimmon left unheaded at planting runs straight up and gives you a crop you cannot reach, on limbs too brittle to climb.
- Stake low and loose One stake, tied at about eighteen inches (45 cm), holds the roots still while the top flexes. High, rigid staking produces a thin trunk that snaps the year you remove it.
The first two seasons
Expect very little top growth in the first year. The tree is rebuilding roots, and a newly planted persimmon that puts out short shoots and then stops is behaving normally, not dying. Judge it by whether the leaves stay a good green through summer, not by how far the shoots extend.
Water deeply once a week through the first two growing seasons, five gallons (19 L) at a time, and skip the week if the top three inches (8 cm) of soil is still damp. Frequent shallow watering keeps roots in the top inch where they cook. Keep a weed-free, mulched circle three feet (90 cm) across; grass right up to the trunk halves the growth of a young tree.
Give no fertilizer at all in the planting year, and only a light spring feed thereafter. Persimmons drop fruit when they are pushed with nitrogen, so the habit of feeding a young tree generously sets up a problem that shows up three years later.
Rub off any shoots that appear below the graft union as soon as you see them; they are rootstock and will overrun the tree if left. Write down the planting date, the exact position, the type on the label and the height at planting. In four years, when you are trying to work out whether the tree is cropping late or simply is not going to, those four lines are the only evidence you will have.