North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Jwlehman@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/21/2005 9:18:58 PM US Eastern Standard Time, ramoyer@gmail.com writes:

Why, with the greater damage of blowouts, do you prefer bark grafts over whip grafting?  On seedling rootstock, the proper diameter for the scion is there, if not, I do cleft grafts, which also are stronger than bark grafts.  In my lack of experience here, please help me understand the attraction of bark grafts for persimmon.

For me it's simply a matter of size. Many of my understock are hand bred material that wasn't an improvement  :-(  so change them over and as such they are way beyond the whip grafting stage unless I grafted about 15 feet in the air. When doing grafting for orchard I do prefer whip grafting 2 (or 3) year seedlings. There may also be an advantage with bark grafting larger understock and that would be coming into production earlier. But have never tested this using a control sample. But it takes longer to grow the understock before grafting and is likely no difference overall.

As absurd as this may sound often the blowout is really a break off and not the scion letting lose from the understock. See the attached picture of one such broken rather than scion blow out. This is common. But makes no difference, SUPPORT heavy large growth.  But blowout isn't a huge problem here. Your area may be subject to higher winds.

Why, compared to apples, pears, pawpaws, mayhaw, cherry, etc, is persimmon so particular about removing ALL competing buds on the rootstock?  What are the hormonal/physiological reasons that are at play here, that are absent in so many other woody plants?

Wish I had the answer to this myself.

Removing isn't totally necessary in all cases, but it sure helps. I've done many leaving on a single nurse limb and have done enough side by side to observe that removal of all limbs, and then shoots, sure increases the take percentage as well as growth of the scion. The success rate sure seems to go down in direct proportion to the number of limbs left on.

One more tidbit. A persimmon graft that is growing in shade spells doom in two to three years. But that goes along with the persimmons habit of self pruning heavily shaded limbs.

If anyone has good quality frozen pulp to sell, I have an order for 30 pints that I can't fill. The advertised price is $4.50 pint. Contact me off line.

Jerry