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Fruit & Orchards

Are these young native Persimmon growing near Oriental persimmon?

8 years ago

I have an non astringent oriental persimmon growing on my property that is at least 15 years old. The area around and beneight it has not been well maintained but I would like to start now. It usually puts out some flowers and a few fruits which drop from the tree before fully ripe. There are a number of young trees growing around and under the persimmon with leaves like those in the attached photos.

I was wondering if these could be young native persimmon trees perhaps growing from the roots of the oriental persimmon. There are at least 8 of them ranging in size from 2 to 8 feet. If they are attached to the oriental's roots, is the oriental benefiting from them in any way or is it safe to cut them to the ground now.

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Comments (5)

Kevin Reilly
8 years ago
If they are attached to the mother tree roots they are suckers from that tree. You can just cut them off at ground level.
marg
Original Author
8 years ago
I am not sure that they are attached to the roots. I just thought that they might be because there are so many of them in this one area by the Oriental persimmon and they have similar, although not exactly the same, leaves.American persimmonI is supposed to be a native tree in Maryland so if they are persimmon, I guess it could be possible that if they came from another source.

In any case, it is good to know that I can cut them down to the ground without worrying about harming the main tree. Thanks.
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I don't think there's any way to figure out if a rootstock will cause problems for a potential kaki graft other than to try one, but based on what creekweb and others have said if the tree died from symptoms at all suggestive of kaki sudden death (ksd), then you should probably assume it's not worth grafting another kaki onto that same rootstock. Are you completely sold on fuyu, though? There are astringent-until-ripe kaki cultivars that have better long-term survival prospects than fuyu in our area. (I'm in NC, too, just a couple hours west of Raleigh.) There are even some non-astringent kakis that probably have slightly better prospects. And there are some outstanding native virginiana cultivars, if you haven't ever tried any of them, that I would definitely recommend trying, and you shouldn't have anything to worry about grafting any of those native cultivars onto the rootstock you already have.
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creekweb
8 years ago
The plants in the photos are native persimmons and almost certainly root suckers. These can be a nuisance requiring repeated removal. With some of these that happened to come up in the right spot, I've severed the root connection to the main tree and after a year grafted them to either native persimmon or kaki. Another issue is roots that cross property lines and sucker out there where a displeased neighbor may choose to use an herbicide on the recalcitrant sucker and possibly damage your tree in the process - I keep a look out for those and sever them when I find them.
marg
Original Author
8 years ago
It is also good to know that I can actually sever a root in this case without harming the tree. I had been thinking that if they were native persimmon, it would be interesting to try to transplant one and see what it does. The idea of grafting is very interesting too. Thanks for the positive ID and for the warning about neighbors yards. Luckily I don't have to worry about that one.
marg
Original Author
8 years ago
Once I started to really clear out around the main tree, I found a lot more suckers growing then I had previously realized. One, in particular, is growing about four feet from the main trunk and is about 2 inches in diameter and 15 feet tall which is as tall as the main tree (although not as well branched out). So, now that i see the number and size of some of the suckers, I am back to worrying if it is possible that removing them all at once might shock the main tree.

Is the main tree benefiting from the energy derived from all the leaf growth on the suckers or is it strictly a one way street in which the suckers are simply sapping the energy away from the main tree?

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