This past year squirrels plundered my American persimmon crop with unusual greediness, and my response of early harvesting of the fruit was only marginally successful as the fruit did not ripen so well off the trees. I am hoping this squirrel activity was an aberration rather than a trend. I would have to agree with your thumbs down assessment of Evelyn. Each year I expect a better fruit from this tree, but to be honest, as you mention, it falls short of a number of other varieties. It's late, it loses its astringency slowly, the pulp is somewhat mealy and its sweetness and flavor are mediocre. The squirrels seem to leave it alone, which of course is a good thing, though I can't help interpreting that as just another confirmatory nay. I will be topworking it this year probably with a kaki. I really like Yates - among the best for flavor with bright orange speckled pulp and reasonable productivity, but a squirrel magnet. Not so early for me with NC10 and Osage a full month earlier. Ruby has been about the same size as Yates but ripening later and not as tasty. My largest American persimmon overall this year came in at 2 3/8 inch diameter, roughly the size of a Great Wall kaki.

Let me see if I can help clarify some of the questions about American persimmons' edible qualities and usage. As was stated above, it's hard to describe what something "tastes like" but I'll take a stab at it. American persimmons are pretty similar to Asian persimmons in flavor, but not exactly the same. As with the Asian varieties, the flavor and texture change somewhat with different stages of ripeness. ALL American persimmons are astringent, so you must wait until fully soft, translucent, and have lost their astringency. I guess the best way to describe their flavor at that stage is similar to a mixture of date and apricot, with some caramel or butterscotch overtones. As they continue to age, they become somewhat firmer and drier, and become considerably more date-like in character and flavor. In cooked products, persimmon is very interchangable in recipes with pumpkin or mashed sweet potato, so that may help to give you some clues about what the end product will turn out like. Personally, I think would have a hard time telling the difference in a blind taste test of something like muffins, cookies, or quick bread between those made with persimmon and those with pumpkin/squash or sweet potatoes. And yes, you CAN pick them off the tree and eat them, once ripe enough. I enjoy them this way, and so does my dog. They are especially good when frozen solid, although I suspect this would not happen very often except here in the most northern parts of their range.

First, esablish that the tree is really not fruiting and not just prematurely losing its fruit. If it really is not fruiting, you would need to establish just what type of tree that you have - whether male or female and then perhaps also whether of the 60 or 90 chromosome race. Sounds tough to figure, but a few clues can lead you to what's likely its identity. If you know that the tree was grafted or you can see signs on the tree that suggest this, then it is most likely a 90 chromosome female. If the blossoms grow in sets of three then it's male; if they are not in groups then it's female. If the leaves are rather large, say greater than 9 inches, then it's more likely 90 chromosome. There are a number of other clues to look for as well. Once you've figured what you have, this is what I'd propose you do: 90 c female - If this tree is not fruiting it probably needs pollination. The best way to provide this is to plant a grafted 90 chromosome male which is available at some nurseries. Cliff England has them. You can also consider grafting a male scion to the tree but the tree may self-prune it off. Varieties like Szukis which sometimes can have male flowers may not be reliable sources of pollen. 90 c male - This tree will not fruit. It can be useful as a source of pollen for most of the named American persimmons that are available at nurseries. So you would need to plant another persimmon tree, preferably a grafted one. Your fruit will have seeds. 60 c female - Again, if not fruiting, probably needs pollination. I don't think you'll find a grafted male, so you would need either to graft a 60c male scion to your tree or buy and plant a few seedlings from a southern nursery (which would most likely be 60c) and in a few years when they bloom pare down to one that is male, having triplet blossoms. 60 c male - I would topwork this tree with one of the 90 c females varieties that doesn't need pollination to fruit.

I've seen some older virginiana growing on virginiana rootstock both in dense plantings and in wide open spaces and most were in the 20 - 30 foot range. These were all in the Northeast and perhaps under different conditions in different locations they would grow taller. In any case they can be pruned to a shorter height if desired. I've grafted virginiana to both kaki and lotus and they grow and fruit well on each. I would expect that a kaki rootstock would have some dwarfing effect on the tree, but with the risk of various problems down the road, I don't think it would be wise to recommend kaki over virginiana rootstock for this application. I believe texana has the same number of chromosomes as the southern virginianas, but I haven't heard of any hybrids between the two. Prok and Yates have an additional set of chromosomes, so they would be incompatible. These varieties don't appear to require any specific trigger to induce fruiting, so I would doubt that having no local wild virginiana would pose a cropping problem.