Keep persimmon rooted in a big pot or pail and place moistened sawdust or moistened mulch to keep the roots moist, then keep inside garage or storage where it stays just sightly below freezing to slightly above freezing, like from -4 deg C to 7 deg C. Keep the sawdust or mulch moistened by covering the surface of the mulch with plastic that has a few holes. Check for moisture every 2 weeks and add moisture if it gets dry. As soon as the ground thaws out, pull out the persimmon and shake off the mulch or sawdust and soak roots in cool water while you dig the planting hole, then plant the persimmon.

Thank you very much.

Regards
Wojtek

Based on my past failures in dealing with bare root persimmons, this is the advice I would give you: Fill a largish pot (5 gallon size is good) with mineral soil, nothing mixed in. Barely moist earth for now. Pot the persimmon up, then leave it at the temps Joe suggests. Grow it for the first season in that pot alone. It may or may not leaf out by July. Before hard freezes hit in Poland, at falls end in 2008, you can then move the persimmon to an area that hovers around 35-45 degrees. This will help "not freeze burn" any new growth put on by the baby persimmon. In spring of 2009, when it first starts coming out of dormancy or first starts putting out a leaf, **then** you can transplant it to the outdoors. Once it puts out a leaf it is committed for the season. But transplanted, bareroot, dormant persimmons are notorious for not coming out of their dormancy until July or August, as has been the case with my baby persimmons, transplanted when dormant. And that late leafing-out, coupled with a short grow season, makes for some pretty unhardened wood come frost. At least if it is in a pot, you can move it to a non-frosty place.

Mr. Joe's grow season is enviously long, and his winters mild! Quite unlike Poland! In all likelyhood, Joe's transplanted bare root persimmons would have wood that was hardened come end of grow season. Unlike your first year with the bare root tree in Poland!

Side story time: One year I bought a couple hardware store, bare-root walnuts. Whoever dug them did a horrible job, as they had no roots at all. Just a few short stubs where roots had once been. I potted them up for their first summer, feeding them frequently. Next spring they were subsequently transplanted to a field location where it is more difficult to get them watered. They are 10 years old now, and need no watering. But that first summer in their pots were very critical in getting any kind of root system established. I do not think they would have fared too well had I put them in the field their first summer. And this is not even addressing any frost issues or reluctancy-to-come-out-of-dormancy issues!

Bottom line: persimmons resent being transplanted. Grow it in a pot one summer.

Hi,
Plumfan - thank you for the advice. Now my Meader is in moistened sawdust. According to your direction I will put the tree to the pot (as soon as possible) and it will be growing for the first season in a pot in my garden. And by the way - we have very light winter this year. I grow also some figs, so I am happy that they will survive without any protection in non heated shed on my garden.
Best regards
Wojtek

I grow almost everything I get bare rooted for a season in a big pot. I can give it very good soil, attention to moisture, and often a degree of shade, either early-season shade to delay budout and protect against late freezes (as it would have little backup energy stored for new buds) or light growing season shade to compensate for few roots. This is especially important for specualty selections from small mail-order nurseries where the plants tend to be fairly small in the first place, smaller than say the whips an orchard would normally be planted with.

I've never grown anything bareroot in a pot, but I have noticed that persimmons seem to fare more poorly in transplanting. Last spring I lost a whole batch of virginiana rootstocks I put in. So plumfans advice sounds good to me if you want to minimize your risk.

Scott

Even when potted first, I have lost persimmons in the pots. They grew, then shriveled and died out. I am strongly suspecting that those fiasco has to do with very ignorant propagators not knowing about the compatibility issues of some kaki cultivars on D. virginiana rootstocks. The bare-rooting process has pushed it over the edge, and so no matter how careful you are, they could die. These propagators should at least check the databases for compatibility issues, but what can you expect if they only know of two types of persimmons: Fuyu, the non-astringent types, and Hachiya as the astringent types.

Persimmons are one of the more expensive fruit trees to buy compared to pomes and stones, and so I keep an extra eye out when monitoring these pricey items when growing, and the care I gave them just to establish them initially. So I know very well when they die out on me.

Oh dear me. I meant to write D. lotus instead of D. virginiana. Although virginiana have some incompatibilities with D. kaki, it is the D. lotus that has many incompatibility issues with the kaki cultivars. The reason why D. lotus is chosen more because it doesn't sucker as badly as D. virginiana. Hint: California propagators love D. lotus as rootstocks, so buyer beware of what your rootstocks are. Make sure they are compatible with the grafted cultivar.

One of the ways to minimize incompatibility is to boost the manganese nutrition of the plants, making sure it is not deficient.

Hi,
Thank you fot many advice. Today I took my bare root Meader persimmon to the large container, filled with good soil. Will see what happens. I hope that she will break the dormancy and start to grow.
Regards
Wojtek

"virginiana have some incompatibilities with D. kaki"

"One of the ways to minimize incompatibility is to boost the manganese nutrition"

I had not heard of either of these. Interesting. I need to read up more on these.

Persimmon scientific literature, especially the Oriental types are hard to come by. Most literature are from outside the US and I learn most from people with a sincere appreciation of the fruit and passion growing them. Very few people have such passion and are trying out various methods. We share notes and try them out.

Persimmon commercial market in the US is not as strong as those outside the US, so the lack of funding in its research studies.

Do you remember what selections have compatibility problems with D. virginiana?

Also, important to me here in the south, do you know if the 60 chromosome D. virginiana that grows native here is less compatible with D. kaki, which I read is 90, the same as northern D. virginiana? Does chromosome number per se affect compatibility?

While no one knows for sure what causes 'Kaki Sudden Death' syndrome, viruses have been detected in affected tissues, and seem to be the most plausible cause under investigation at this point in time.
I think that the manganese deficiency or inability of D.v. rootstocks to transport sufficient manganese has been set aside as less likely than a viral etiology.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kaki Sudden Death

Thanks for the update Lucky! That's another rare info.