Question on persimmons

[Mount-N-Man]

Last fall in October I picked up about 40-50 persimmons at a friends farm. When I got home that evening I planted all of them 3-4 inches deep. Some I planted whole and some i crushed to expose the seeds. I planted about 3 or 4 seeds about 5 feet or so apart and would go 30 or 40 yards and do the same thing till all the seeds were gone. Question is do you think the seeds will sprout and turn into trees or did I do something wrong? I also am going to plant some apple or pear trees. What would be better, apples or pears?

[Hammer]

Here's what I found out last year about persimmons (briefly). They will not grow if you just pick them up and plant. Part of their growing cycle includes going through the digestive tract of some animal. I found about 25 last fall in a pile of 'yote scat, and this post reminds me that I need to get them in the ground.

Now, I'm no biologist, and I could be wrong, and that's fine if anybody wants to correct me, but this is what I was told by a few internet cohorts and by researching on the net.

[skin_dog1]

Hammer, I believe the final verdict on the poopy seeds was that they would still grow if not pooped, but they will not sprout for 2 years. Again, I said I "believe". I do remember the topic and they're were several differing opinions. There was something brought up about nurseries and the way it's done there(I'm quite sure they don't pick them out of poop". Good luck with the seeds, regardless of what pile of poop you get them from! lol

[elkguy]

Last fall in October I picked up about 40-50 persimmons at a friends farm. When I got home that evening I planted all of them 3-4 inches deep. Some I planted whole and some i crushed to expose the seeds. I planted about 3 or 4 seeds about 5 feet or so apart and would go 30 or 40 yards and do the same thing till all the seeds were gone. Question is do you think the seeds will sprout and turn into trees or did I do something wrong? I also am going to plant some apple or pear trees. What would be better, apples or pears?

I would go with a combination of apples and pears. I also recommend selecting varieties that produce fruit at different times during the hunting season. If you pick the right ones, you can have different groups of trees dropping fruit at different times, thus providing several weeks of deer attracting fruit. I worked with a landowner in Louisiana once that had several varieties of crabapples, apples, and pears in a 3-acre orchard that was just a big natural bait pile. He had apples and/or pears dropping, and deer feeding in it for about 3 months during deer season. He had it set up to where as one group of trees stopped dropping apples, another group of another variety would start. It was pretty slick. I visited that place in late October and it smelled like a barnyard from all the deer sign.

Check with a nursery and/or the Ag extension service to select the different varieties and production dates in KY.

[GSP]

I would go with a combination of apples and pears. I also recommend selecting varieties that produce fruit at different times during the hunting season. If you pick the right ones, you can have different groups of trees dropping fruit at different times, thus providing several weeks of deer attracting fruit. I worked with a landowner in Louisiana once that had several varieties of crabapples, apples, and pears in a 3-acre orchard that was just a big natural bait pile. He had apples and/or pears dropping, and deer feeding in it for about 3 months during deer season. He had it set up to where as one group of trees stopped dropping apples, another group of another variety would start. It was pretty slick. I visited that place in late October and it smelled like a barnyard from all the deer sign.

Check with a nursery and/or the Ag extension service to select the different varieties and production dates in KY.

I'm in the process of doing this now, unfortantly I waited to long this season. I am going to get into the grafting mode with apple trees. My uncle is an apple grower and did all his orchards with grafted trees. He grafted the desired fruit onto a dwarf or semi-dwarf root stock system. You end up with a smaller size tree that produces the same amount of fruit as the parent stock, also you get results faster. A good year on a 15 year old tree can drop you the better part of a pick-up load of apples.:)


My grandmother also grafted and had 3 trees that produced up to 5 different types of apples. I think this has to be the best critter magnet around.:cool:

[Mount-N-Man]

Thanks for the info. About how many years does it take apple and pear trees to produce fruit? Also, has anyone planted the sawtooth oaks you can get from the NWTF? If so, are they good to plant also?

[elkguy]

It sounds like GSP has elevated this to an art form.

[skin_dog1]

Thanks for the info. About how many years does it take apple and pear trees to produce fruit? Also, has anyone planted the sawtooth oaks you can get from the NWTF? If so, are they good to plant also?
Sawtooths are the fastest growing and producing of the oaks. I've heard they can produce acorns in as little as 7 years. Other oak varieties can take decades!

[Multidigits]

I've bought sawtooths from the NWTF and also from Ohio and from Ind. state nurseries. the ones from Ind. seem to be superior to the rest. Buy 2 yr. old seedlings if you can get them and they almost all will make a tree. I'm not convinced they will make an acorn in 7 years yet, but they do grow fast. We've got 5 year old trees now that are close to 20' tall, this from somithing that looked like a small twig when we planted them.

The ones from the NWTF tend to be the Gobbler varity. they produce a smaller acorn than the reg. species.

[Sialia]

Mount-N-Man,

I have collected persimmon seeds from the fruit and fall planted them just as you did. Germination was great. If young persimmons do not poke through the soil this season, maybe 4-5 inches was too deep. An inch is plenty deep enough. Persimmons are either male or female so by planting as many as you did, you will definitely have enough females in the mix to produce fruit. The flowers on male trees are very attractive to bees and other insects. I noticed a persistant humming noise emanating from a large open grown male persimmon tree a couple years ago. A closer look revealed countless bees and other insects swarming the flowers throughout the crown of the tree. The landowner said that the insects hit the tree every year during the flowering season.

[SixPack07]

Anyone think those persimmons will grow way up here in Wisconsin? I doubt it, but they sure like anything flavored like that.

[Mount-N-Man]

Multi... Do you have contact information on how to get the sawtooth oak trees from Indiana?

[kyfanatic]

Mount-N-Man, here are some links you might be interested in ,Virginia sells Sawtooth oaks that are of good quality =
http://www.forestry.ky.gov/
http://www.dof.virginia.gov/nursery/cat-intro.shtml
http://www.uky.edu/Ag/NewCrops/intro.html#fruit
http://www.kdfwr.state.ky.us/howto.asp?lid=631&NavPath=C100C152C177

A good way to get started is by having a Wildlife Biologist take a look at your place,he can make suggestions to improve habitat,etc and help get you into cost share programs if your interested.Clay Smitson is the guy for Pendleton county,his phone # is 502-863-0426

[Multidigits]

Multi... Do you have contact information on how to get the sawtooth oak trees from Indiana?


Looks like Indiana has dropped the sawtooths for now. I'm order some from Alabama. theirs are cheaper anyway. Ohio has sawtooths if you want some picked up instead of by mail.

[kyfanatic]

Anyone think those persimmons will grow way up here in Wisconsin? I doubt it, but they sure like anything flavored like that.
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I'd give it try,you might be surprised SixPack. I planted some Bald Cypress on my place several years ago,never dreamed they'd grow here on a ridgetop farm,but they're doing great.You can by seedlings pretty cheap from Ky Div of forestry,there's a link on my earlier post in this thread.

[creekdawgg]

Skindog gave me some good advice on some young persimmion trees i have on the farm but I cant remember what he said to do with them? Something about cutting them back or trimming the trees around it? Skindog do you remember?

[skin_dog1]

you need to open the canopy around them Don't trim the persimmons, just get rid of all those cedars that were crowding them. Then this fall fertilize them good. Fertilize them every fall and soon they'll fill in and start dropping lb upon lb of deer candy! I don't remember the exact formula for fertilizing, but I think it was 2 lbs(12-12-12) per inch of trunk diameter at chest height. Go around the drip line(outer edge of foilage) of the tree and break the soil with a spade and evenly distribute the fert. If you look on NWTF website they have the exact way to do it on there somewhere. You can also just search for "fertilize fruit trees". I'm sure you will come up with something.

[SixPack07]

Thanks for the suggestion!