I want to plant 2 or 3 small groups of persimon trees around some of my better tree stand sites. Do all trees produce fruit?? From reading another persimmon tree post, Dan O said something about male and female trees. Do I need to plant males and females together?? How can I make sure the trees I get are female or male?? Any and all help will be appreciated. How long will it take to produce fruit under ideal growing conditions??

Here's a little info:

http://www.arhomeandgarden.org/lands...Persimmons.asp

Male Persimmons don't bear fruit, just flowers. I only have 1 male and it looks after a few dozen females up to 200 yds away. If you plant enough seedling trees you'll have males. In my own circumstances my trees started to bear in about 10 years from being planted as 1 ft seedlings. My grafted varieties started bearing about 3 years after being planted as 3' trees. Some varieties carry male and female traits, so you may be able to make use of this. I asked an expert how to tell male from female and his answer was to wait until they bloom. Another method to be sure you have a male would to grow suckers from a tree that you knew was male.

Dan O.

Thanks for the info.

OK Dan O. I have some more questions for you. What exactly are you talking about when you said your grafted trees started producing after 3 years?? What exactly is a grafted tree?? Thanks in advance!!

There are two types of grafted trees. One type is where a normal tree, like an Apple, is grafted to the root of a crab Apple, resulting in a much smaller tree. The tree only produces the fruit from the top of the graft. Thewse trees must be planted sothat the graft is above the ground line, as the top may root, which will ruin the graft process. The other graft is when limbs of different varieties of a fruit are grafted on a different variety. (These are the 5 in 1 apple trees you see advertised.) I guess that is how they get a tree that is both male and female. A couple of male limbs grafted onto a female tree would make it self-pollinating. My Brother-in-law has many trees he has grafted, Apple, Pear, Peach and a Cherry. (He said the Cherry was the hardest.) Books are available on grafting; some may be found at Home Depot or Lowes. If you have a county extension office in your area, they may be able to help.

As Ross said a variety is grafted onto a rootstock (usually a Persimmon seedling). Nurseries usually grow the grafted trees for 1-2 years after grafting and the scion wood that was grafted was from bearing wood, so the tree will give fruit quicker than planting a seedling. The variety that I've had the best success with is "Early Golden". Some varieties of Persimmon will give male and female flowers. But; you could have a male variety grafted onto the tree as Ross said.

Dan O.