• A handful of persimmons. Persimmons are an amazing native fruit that ripens through fall and winter. They are eaten soft and they fall from the tree when ripe.
  • New spring growth on a bed of emerging persimmons.
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Virginia Trees

American Persimmon

American Persimmon

$10.00 USD
$10.00 USD
Sale Sold out
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October 2024 Update: SOLD OUT ON SEEDLINGS

Persimmons are an amazing native fruit that ripens through fall and winter. They are eaten soft and they fall from the tree when ripe.

They typically begin bearing fruit in 5-8 years and can live for hundreds of years. They are great fresh, for baking, in smoothies, and canned in jam.

Also if you are a hunter, you could plant a whole cluster of them in a wildlife food plot to help feed a healthy deer population on your land.

I have 2 varieties of persimmon available this year. Their descriptions are below.

These are first year seedlings in the range of 1' tall. 

Since these are taprooting trees, it is preferable for the tree to be transplanted very small to promote root health. All seedlings are shipped dormant as bare roots.

Persimmons are dioecious so 50% of seedlings will be male and 50% will be fruit producing females (there is no way to know until they mature). So you could plant them densely in a cluster or hedgerow with the intention of thinning. Or you could space them 10'-15' apart at initial planting and graft over most of the male trees with cultivars. 

 

Types of Seedlings

Seedling American Persimmon: Oikos Select

Diosypros virginiana

Seed source: Ken Asmus, Oikos Tree Crops

Ken's Description: 

My strain was developed using grafted trees from the following varieties: Early Golden, John Rick, Yates, Killen, Beaver, Pipher, Morris Burton and others. The seedlings were planted out over the course of a decade spaced only 5-10 ft. apart in a row that extended about 2000 feet. The plants were limbed as they grew and never sprayed.  Each of the plantings I did was a surprise in that there were no bad trees in terms of overall fruit quality but there was a difference in the texture, graininess and in some very cool years astringency in fruits that do not ripen fully.  For this reason I am using only the best fruitful selections at my farm for use for seeds while focusing on the earliest to ripen and the most fruitful plants in 2021. For my planting this means fruits that ripen in September and October where the whole crop ripens pretty much all at once. Because of the cloudy and cool location in southwestern Michigan about 30 miles from Lake Michigan it is far more northern and far more short season than all so called short season varieties. 


This is the most northern of the seed strains using a mix of seedling persimmons at our farm selecting the most productive trees  that ripen early in the season which is September and October most years. The trees have taken a low of -27F in 2019 and likely can grow into zone 4 without winter damage. Male and female on separate trees-50-50 mix of male and female trees grown from seed. It is not true there is 70 percent males in a population. Amazingly diverse soils and this plant is quite vigorous in them all. Sand, loam, clay, alkaline or acidic. Zone 5ish-9.

 

 

Seedling American Persimmon: Wild

Diosypros virginiana

Seed source: Virginia Trees

 

Seed description:

These were collected from wild type trees in Virginia's Piedmont and Ridge & Valley regions. 

Shipping or Pickup Info

FREE SHIPPING ON ANY ORDER OVER $59!

You will receive an email when plants begin shipping. This will be once they go dormant for the winter.
Local pickup orders will also receive an email with the potential pickup dates when we get closer as this depends on the weather.

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