My friend has chocolate, and I don't think it's nearly as good as Fuyu. Fuyu is the classic persimmon you'll find sold in grocery stores, people always love it.

My opinion: Fuyu is the classic persimmon you'll find sold in grocery stores (in the US, where most people don't know what to do with a persimmon) for more or less the same reasons that Red Delicious is the classic apple you'll find sold in grocery stores.

He is pushing double planting of those two because you need them to pollinator each other, this will change the flavor/color of the fruit/flesh that makes it unique to those varieties, however it will also make seeds in the fruit. If seeds bother you I would just plant a Fuyu or one of the other varieties on their own .

Thanks all. I think I should just stick with fuyu. I don't think I can go wrong. CousinFloyd, red delicious is fast losing shelf space to apples like pink lady, gala, honeycrisp, Fuji, etc. here in Southern California. We are very fortunate to have fresh locally grown crops most of the year so our markets might not be comparable to Northern or Eastern ones.

Correct cousinfloyd. Chocolate has the high percentage of male flowers and pollenates coffeecake. Coffeecake will fruit on its own but the fruit will be astringent. Once pollinated by chocolate or another pollinator, the fruit becomes non astringent. I am not scared away because of the 2 trees. I have all manner of single, double planting, and multi grafts in the backyard. But I see no reason to plant 2 trees if one fuyu will be sufficient. My small hobby orchard is designed to have fresh fruit available all year long. Just pick and eat. I'm not looking to process the fruit much beyond a quick wash and perhaps slicing.

"But I see no reason to plant 2 trees if one fuyu will be sufficient." But that's the point I don't believe is justified. I don't think the pollination variant alternative to fuyu is planting two trees; I think you can plant one tree, Chocolate, all by itself and have excellent quality fruit that you can just pick and eat, without having to wait until it's soft-ripe and without any more processing than maybe a quick wash and perhaps slicing. Chocolate may have a high percentage of male flowers, but it still, from all accounts I've heard, has plenty of female flowers and produces plenty of fruit.

None of this is necessarily to talk you out of Fuyu. Like I said, I've liked every Asian persimmon I've ever tasted, including Fuyus, but I believe planting Chocolate all by itself would be another perfectly good option that you might very well like even better than Fuyu.

Oh, I understand now Floyd. What was confusing me is that chocolate is considered a mediocre persimmon out here. Good certainly but fuyu is by far the more popular fruit. Kind of like santa rosa plum. It's a good fruit for sure but there are better tasting fruits that hang on the tree much longer so santa rosa is recommended as a pollinator. So, chocolate generally isn't planted for its own fruit but rather to pollinate other varieties. we have very hot dry summers and mild weather the rest of the year. It was 86 degrees here yesterday and we haven't had rain in months.

I haven't grown or tasted Chocolate yet, although based on all the accounts I've read, I'm interested in grafting it this spring, not as a pollinator but for its own sake. One grower in Maryland that has grown upwards of 10 different persimmon varieties seems to have described it as his #1 favorite, and I've heard similar praise from the moderator of an online persimmon forum. Nurseries seem to give it very high praise as well. Although I'm always suspicious of what nurseries have to say about their trees, just as I'm suspicious of what any business says of products it's trying to sell, more than one nursery seems to give Chocolate especially high praise especially for taste, even relative to other varieties they're selling. I'm already growing about 12 different varieties of Asian persimmons (about 5 of which I've
fruited, and a few others of which I've tasted from other people's
trees), but so far I've focused especially on varieties with outstanding accounts of cold hardiness and longevity in marginal climates. I haven't seen anything to indicate that Chocolate is outstanding in those respects (neither for the better nor for the worse), but the taste reports alone make me really want to try it.

I work at Toms Creek Nursery & Landscaping in Farmer, NC. I had never tried an Asian Persimmon until working here. Good gravy! The Chocolate Persimmon is delicious. The fruit was on the trees while they were still in the containers. It was love at first bite. I loved it so much that I bought one. I realize that it doesn't need a pollinator but will bear a heavier crop if it has one. The other Asian persimmons that we have is:

- Fuyu Imoto Strain

- Fuyu Jiro

- Giant Fuyu

- Hachiya

- Tampoan

- Chocolate

Will any of these work?

Hi Julie. They are good eh? I planted a fuyu, what I believe is the fuyu jiro. It was planted bare rot and pruned off at knee height so is just a stick for right now. It has the faintest buds starting to swell.

Julie, most persimmon trees produce either all male (pollen-only producing) or all female (fruit producing) flowers. Chocolate is an exception in that it's both a pollen producer and a fruiting tree. From what I've heard Giant Fuyu (if that's the same as Hana Fuyu, which I believe it is) might occasionally produce some male flowers, but I don't know if it would produce enough male flowers to make any noticeable difference in the fruit production of your Chocolate tree. I don't believe any of the other varieties you listed is known to ever produce any male flowers. So, short answer, I don't think any of them would work. However, I really don't believe you need another pollinator. I can't say from personal experience yet, but I believe you should get plenty of fruit set from Chocolate without any supplemental pollination. A lot of persimmons are more inclined to over-set than to under-set.

Both