North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Steven Covacci <filtertitle@aol.com>]

Dear group:


I was thinking of making 3 multi-grafted persimmon trees:


1. Asian persimmon (many cultivars)
2. American persimmon (many cultivars)
3. Lotus persimmon (using scion wood for multiple seedlings - experiment to 
find a better-flavored fruit; most say D. lotus tastes horrible, but a few 
have said otherwise, particularly if dried).


In all these multi-grafted trees, I would wait until the tree has a couple 
main branches and then at the tips start grafting, so that no cultivar 
completely dominates too heavily, since the frame and structure of the tree 
would be, in each instance, from one single cultivar, before branching off 
into different cultivars of varying vigor, leaf-structure, etc.


However, INSTEAD of doing this, I was considering planting a patch/grove of 
persimmons for each type.  


In nature, unless when seedlings falling from the mother tree form a grove, 
most persimmon and paw paw patches are umbilically linked via their roots, 
being clonal-suckers, so that the trees with the least access to direct 
sunlight are able to receive nutrients from those in direct sunlight, as they 
all share a mutual root-system.  If they don't, I suspect those with the 
poorest position don't do all that well as in the initial scenario.


Say, in a 10' x 10' spot for each, planting around 8 different cultivars; the 
trees would grow thin, congested between each other, and maybe would be less 
productive, putting in a lot of energy to growing tall in competing with each 
other for light, as they would also compete with each other for nutrients.


Yet, I think that a 10' x 10' patch of 8 persimmon trees (each a different 
cultivar) would produce more then enough persimmons, and perhaps around as 
much as a single tree would that is multi-grafted to fit 8 cultivars, being 
difficult to maintain the shape and balance of.


What do you think about this idea?  Both solutions look unnatural: a 
multi-graft tree = Frankenstein invention; and a grove of persimmons which 
contrast in, of all things, fruit size and shape doesn't look all that true 
to nature either.


Maybe I could take a 30' x 30' area and plant around 24 persimmon trees - 
mixed/unsorted in distribution: comprised of 8 D. virginiana, 8 D. kaki (on 
D. virginiana), and 8 D. lotus.  That might be an interesting horticultural 
look forgetting natural altogether, since no two of the 24 would look 
identical, being of different cultivars among the three species.


Steve