Forestry

Native Fruits: Persimmon
  • December 16, 2024
  • Posted by: Dylan Taylor and Holt Akers-Campbell
  • in Forestry
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4 min read
Wild American Persimmon Fruit

The common persimmon (Diospyros virginiana)—also known as the eastern or American persimmon—is Alabama’s only native persimmon species. Its native range extends across the Southeast and into the lower Midwest. While smaller and possessing more prominent seeds than the domesticated Asian persimmon (Diospyros kaki), it is both a favored wildlife tree and excellent for human consumption, having been utilized and cultivated by Native Americans for centuries.

Description

Growth. In good conditions, the common persimmon can reach more than 80 feet tall. However, it is generally far shorter, often less than 40 feet tall. Smaller trees have a scrubby growth form.

Leaves. The leaves are alternate on the stem, glossy, thick, and generally between 4 and 6 inches long. They may turn reddish orange to red during fall and will be speckled with dark spots. The bark is dark brown to dark grey in color and is tight but deeply craggy and scaly.

Flowers. The flowers are off-white, small, and inconspicuous. They grow singly on female trees and in clusters on male trees.

Reproduction. The common persimmon is mostly dioecious, having separate male and female trees.

Fruit. The fruit ranges from ¾ of an inch to more than 2 inches in diameter, depending on the cultivar and the individual, with a prominent attached calyx and a faint bloom. The fruit ripens to a deep pinkish orange and is soft when ready.

Availability

Common persimmons are readily available from native plant nurseries, and there are a number of cultivars available. ‘Meader’, ‘John Rick’, ‘Early Golden’, ‘Garrettson’, ‘Prok’, ‘Dollywood’, and ‘Killen’ are some cultivars available for purchase. The tree also grows readily from seed and can produce root suckers. Grafted cultivars typically produce slightly smaller trees than seedling trees do. Most cultivars and some wild trees (mostly at the northern end of its native range) are 90-chromosome persimmons. When those cultivars are grown in Alabama and pollinated by the wild-type, 60-chromosome trees, they can produce large fruit with few seeds.

Uses for Humans

The most immediate and obvious use of the persimmon is its fruit. Care should be taken to only harvest ripe fruit, as unripe fruit are powerfully astringent and unpleasant to consume. In order to ensure ripeness, you can wait until after the first frost of the year. The seeds and skin are generally discarded, with the pulp being incredibly sweet and possessing almost no acidity. Use a sieve or fruit pulper to separate seeds and process pulp for freezing. It may be used in persimmon puddings, jellies, jams, fruit butters, pies, candies, ice creams, and many other uses. Unfortunately, the soft, ripe fruit does not ship or store well and should be processed as soon as possible. You can store the fruit in the refrigerator until you can process and freeze.

The common persimmon’s leaves contain high levels of vitamin C and can be used for tea. Other uses of the tree include its ornamental value and striking foliage, and the high quality timber from mature specimens. A true ebony, persimmon heartwood is hard and dense and takes well to polishing. It is streaked with dark brown or nearly black bands and may be used for things like golf club heads and pool cues.

Uses For Wildlife

As a source of soft mast production in fall and early winter, the common persimmon is relished by a wide array of wildlife, including favored game animals like deer, turkeys, squirrels, and raccoons. The fruit is also readily consumed and spread by both domestic dogs and coyotes. The common persimmon is a larval-host plant for many moth species, including the luna moth and hickory horned devil. The flowers also produce significant nectar for bees.

Cultivation

The common persimmon is found through nearly all of Alabama and will grow well on a wide variety of site and soil types. It will perform best and reach its greatest size on rich, moist, and organic soils but will grow and produce well even on xeric and sandy sites. There are both male and female trees, so multiple will have to be planted to ensure fruit production. It possesses a strong taproot, which makes transplanting established trees difficult but grants it significant drought tolerance.

It can be grown readily from seed and can be propagated via root suckers, but suckers will not produce fruit if no other tree but the parent is present. Seeds require a moist, damp stratification period for best germination. To grow the wild-type common persimmons from seed, extract the seed from ripe fruit in the fall, wash off pulp, and keep the cleaned seed in slightly moist sand or other sterile media in the refrigerator for several months. Plant the seeds into deep nursery pots in the spring or directly into a well-prepared final field growing location, protected from small mammals and deer with a hardware cloth tube. Growing trees from seed is the lowest cost option for establishment, but leads to unpredictable genetics and mostly small fruit size. Planting grafted cultivars ensures that most trees in a stand will be female (bear fruit) and have high yields. Some of the 90-chromosome named cultivars do not need pollination to set fruit. In a mixed stand, one male tree per twenty females can be sufficient. Seedlings bear fruit in four to 9 years typically, and grafted trees will fruit within 3 to 5 years.

Best growth and highest fruit yields requires full-sun conditions. Keep seedlings and suckers free from vegetative competition. Little pruning is required if the trees develop a strong central leader form early. Several insects feed on the common persimmon but in many instances do not cause economic harm. Populations of webworms are common on branch ends and can damage small trees. Twig girdlers (Oncideres cingulata) can hurt growth and kill branches, especially on young trees. Several fungal diseases are often visible on common persimmons, with persimmon wilt (Cephalosporium diospyri) having the most potential to cause significant damage. Remove infected areas and burn the infected vegetation. Expect mature trees to yield between 35 and 75 pounds of fruit per tree and have an optimum fruit-bearing age of 25 to 50 years old.

References