My Eureka were very small due to heat and drought. The ones I ripened at room temperature were fair. They ripened almost as fast in the frige and tasted much better. They also looked better ripened at the lower temperature. Darker red and more of that translucent look.

Next year I'm hoping for some fruit on Chocolate.

I've only got one bearing tree, a 'Tam Kam' Korean persimmon. Two years ago I got 2 fruit, last year I got 7, this year 35. They averaged 8 ounces, ranging from 6 to 10 ounces. The weatherman just announced today that this has been the wettest year on record for our area, so that may account for the large size of the fruit. Still very sweet though.

Alex

My persimmons seem to be on a biennial thing which has lasted for four years now. This was an off year, no Chocolate or Hachiya. I did get some Fuyu, 20th Century, and Aizu Michirazu this year. All were very good. The AM is an astringent type of medium size, it has very good flavor, very sweet, and not too stringy. It was sweeter than the other two, which are non-astringent.

Overall after 4-5 years of growing persimmons I like about all of them except the small and stringy astringent ones like Great Wall. The Aizu Michirazu has been very reliable and doesn't suffer from the alternate bearing and occasional shoot dieback I have been getting from Hachiya, so its probably my favorite astringent type. Chocolate is great for something different, a rich cinnamon flavor. The non-astringent types I like more than I used to, they are not nearly as sweet but I still like the mild crunchy flavor.

BTW, Aizu Michirazu (originally spelled Aizu-Mishirazu I believe) is in fact a PVA type, meaning it is astringent and needs pollination to have good flavor. Nearly all of the astringent types in the US are PCA, meaning they don't need pollination to taste good; I don't think any nurseries are propagating any PVA types these days. I have yet to taste it side by side with a Hachiya but A-M may be a bit better in flavor. My Chocolate always pollinates it every year. A-M is one of the top 10 varieties grown in Japan; I expect the PVA is why it never caught on here, many people like to grow seedless persimmons in the US.

Scott

This year grey squirrels took a large part of both my Asian and American persimmon crop. There has been a trend toward increasing loss to squirrels in recent years but this year really stood out. My guess is that I would have needed to kill hundreds of squirrels to have avoided this problem, and as this is not an exercise I plan for the future, I will need to reassess and rethink my strategy to save my crop in future years. One positive is that in one area that has ridiculous squirrel pressure (apples, pears and peaches are all taken when they are not even close to being ripe) I was able to save most of my crop of Saijo by early harvesting. I may topwork a number of trees to Saijo this spring.

Some of the most successful commercial persimmons are of the PVA type such as Sharon fruit, Rojo Brillante, Aizu and Hiratanenashi. As I understand it and would think after examining the fruit, these are grown commercially without pollination, as I have seen neither seeds nor the typical brownish coloration of the flesh typical of PV pollinated fruit. These unpollinated fruits are sweet and flavorful but slow to lose their astringency unless chemically treated. The pollinated ones have seeds (except Hiratanenashi) and reportedly lose their astringency more readily when they ripen. Squirrels took all my PVA persimmons (unpollinated) this year, but if I'm able to early harvest/rescue some of my crop next year, I would like to see whether any home astringency removal methods might work on these persimmons so that they may be eaten firm ripe. I have a pollen source and may also hand pollinate several to assess the extent of the difference this makes.

Creekweb, are you talking about out of the US for these commercial plantings? In the US its pretty much Hachiya and Fuyu only from what I have seen. It sounds like this is in Europe? In Japan they only grow Japanese varieties and at least from what I have read they always want them pollinated because they believe that gives the best flavor.

I am somewhat confused by the PVA vs PVNA, my Aizus have little or no browning but I have read that the PVAs do brown so I am puzzled. They are definitely astringent until ripe, even if pollinated. I am wary of growing any of the PV types without pollination because I have heard too many stories of mediocre quality fruits that way, but maybe the alcohol treatments produce a good tasting fruit.

Good luck with the squirrels. You could probably trap them all with enough Kania traps, but you may need a whole lot of them. I used two for several years but have two more on order so I will be totally covered.

Scott

"My Eureka were very small due to heat and drought. The ones I ripened at room temperature were fair. They ripened almost as fast in the frige and tasted much better. They also looked better ripened at the lower temperature. Darker red and more of that translucent look."
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On what I guess to be "Eureka" I had decent size fruit but similarly only fair quality and not very dark red ripened at room temperature. I have had them much better in quality, and darker, off that very same tree in earlier years. I wish I had known about ripening in the cold. I have done that inadvertently in the past (cold utility room) but not intentionally. Now I know. Thanks.

Scott, I meant commercially successful worldwide where Sharon fruit (Israel), Rojo Brillante (Spain), Aizu (Italy) and Hiratanenashi (Japan) are the main astringents grown in each of those countries with the Sharon fruit exported to US markets. I think that there are some minor plantings of some of these in the US but as you say here it's mostly Hachiya and Fuyu.

I've been under the impression that the PVNAs need to be pollinated for good flavor, but I've never tried an unpollinated one to compare. The issue with pollination of the PVAs though I think has more to do with how readily they lose their astingency.

I hate to raise the white flag in my war against the squirrels, but they seemingly laugh at my efforts at control. The Kania traps are formidable killing machines, but I think my squirrel population and reserves are just too numerous to achieve control in this way without devoting more time and effort to the task than I'd be willing. But there is hope - winning the battle of Saijo was a much needed moral victory and enforces the idea of the possibility of success when taking new approaches to this problem. Just got to come up with some more ideas.

Creek, if you have an acre or less I would say you can do it, thats about what I have and the squirrels are thick as bees here. Its not that much work once you take out the initial "crop". I also only trap from Feb to Sep, once the nuts come in they don't bug the fruits. If you have more than an acre of orchard the workload may get out of hand.

Scott

Scott you are right if you want to get rid of squirls you have to start early in the year. You sure don't want them to multiply! If you have that many i borrow ,rent,steal as many traps i could find,use the right bait and go to war.I might be lucky in my area because everywhere around here are wild persimmons.None of my persimmon are touch by them and a lot of my tree's have lost there leaves and the persimmon stiil hanging.Now they were stealing my plums big time.I got most of them though.They don't like my cat and my dog(schnauser) and my 22 plinker.I have a trap but don't use it yet.

only got a few, but they were good.

Ichi-Ke-Kei Jiro 4th or 5ht year, I can't remember. This is the first year I've gotten ripe fruit, though (kids and critters have prevented the last two.

~Chills

My Fuyu Persimmon tree was loaded this year, as it was last year. I thinned at least half the fruit and there were still a buttload. Half of them are still on the tree. Ripening Persimmons this year has been a challenge. None have ripened on the tree. I put some in my house to ripen but most go in the unheated garage. Oddly enough, the ones in the cold garage soften up quite quickly while the ones in the warm house seem to take forever. But that's good cuz I can eat Persimmons over a long period of time. Especially since there's alot still on the tree. The flavor I must say is quite mild. Good if you're into low-sugar fruits. But nothing to write home about.