Yep. They ripen. Natives do too. Many are better after a light frost, especially astringent varieties.

Thank you

I assume you are obtaining Maru to pollinate your Coffeecake with them both being PV (Pollination Variant) types as they reportedly do not have good flavor as astringents and do not develop the brown non-astringent flesh if not seeded. Just be aware that they will likely seed your other trees as well. So far I hopefully have stayed away from cultivars that produce significant male's flowers for that reason. Your Izu and Coffeecake(Nishimura Wase) are some of the earliest ripening, but I think you will be fine with any you have. I believe Giant Fuyu is the same as HanaFuyu , so it and your Ichi Ki Kei Jiro are listed most places as slightly earlier or the same time as Fuyu which fruits fine for me just south of the Tennessee line. I have about 7 cultivars and within a year hopefully several more, but only 3 types have carried their fruit to maturity. I started picking my Fuyu a couple at a time as they developed color last fall and they did keep improving up to the point the last few took a pretty hard freeze and they went down hill after that. I have heard the note about better after a frost mostly referring to native American persimmon my whole life but I do not agree and I just think they were marginal ripe prior, and from your cultivar selection it sounds you prefer a firm fruit, and as you have no astringents with the exception of your PVs which you seem to want swayed to non-astringent.

Strudeldog, thanks for that information, that's more the answer I was looking for. Maybe you can answer a few more questions for me:

When is your fruit ready to pick, around what time of the month does it start to happen?

Do you eat your fruit right off the tree or let it sit before eating it? Does the fruit get sweeter if left to sit for a few days or does it just get softer?

Some of my trees will produce fruit without pollination(is that the right word) but does that mean it doesn't need the help of insects or bees or does that refer to pollen from another tree only?

I chose my varieties very carefully but the mail-order nursery couldn't answer all my questions and gardenweb participants are always able to fill in where the catalogs fall short.

Thanks for coming to my aid again, you guys are fabulous, have a great day.

Hope I can help "the new guy" some day.

In the five years that I've been buying persimmons from the store I've had only one that had seeds. The fruit was fine but I didn't care for the seeds being there, I thought they took up valuable space so I will work on that issue once the trees come into bearing.

After watching the Dave Wilson video on youtube I just had to have Coffeecake and Maru, even at the cost of seedy fruit but I wondered if Izu or Ichi.. could produce all on its own then maybe I could isolate one of them or cover one with a floating rowcover to prevent seedy fruit...just a thought. Thanks for information

If you haven't seen the DW video here' a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jitSZYPvipc

Here is a link that might be useful: UC Irvine Persimmon Collection from Dave Wilson

Any experience with "Yokono" in 6b zone?I have 2-yrs old plant grafted on D. lotus rootstock and still hesitate to plant it in ground. I am not sure, if it is sufficiently frost hardy in 6b zone.

Okey, i try another question. Do you have experience with Miss Kim persimmon? everybody is talking about these hardy varieties, but nobody grows them?

I also live in GA and was wondering if it needed a light or hard frost before harvesting? I believe it may be a Fuyu but not positive.

Lilburn/Stone Mountain GA 7b here. I too heard of Maru after running into this blog post - In Search of the Chocolate Persimmon , later running into Dave Wilson Nursery's youtube post as well. So without a pollinator, Maru would produce Astringent fruits but with a pollinator such as Chocolate that produces a lot of male flower, it would get that cinnamony flesh and edible like non-astringent variety. So I went ahead and got me a chocolate (with the risk of finding seeds from my other Persimmon trees). Unfortunately, I can't share any experience as this is my second year and they are still growing. (I did also get a Coffee Cake while I was at it though).

(Worse case scenario, I figured if the Seed becomes unbearable, I will graft something else on the chocolate) :D