North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Jwlehman@aol.com]

In a message dated 5/29/2012 8:38:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
scott@cs.jhu.edu writes:

> My Chocolate persimmon has been making almost exclusively male flowers 
> for the last couple of years.  It used to be more balanced male/female and 
> I 
> would get a tree load of fruit.  Is there something I should do to change 
> the balance?  I haven't pruned it much at all so I would not be surprised 
> if 
> that had something to do with it.
> 
> Scott
> 

Good Morning Scott,

Interesting, very interesting. I have never head this complaint before. 
I've heard of persimmon trees effectively switching sexual expression, your 
is 
the first  first hand account. 

I know of only one D. virginiana cultivar that bears both pistillate and 
staminate flowers, Szukis. It is unstable and switches sexual expression when 
grafting. 

Question, were the pistillate and staminate flowers intermixed on the same 
branchlets? Or were some branches male and some branches female? If the 
later is the case would pruning out the branches that are bearing the 
staminate 
flowers bring the tree into balance?  I doubt if just pruning limbs randomly 
would bring back the female flowers. 

>From what you wrote the tree has been there quite a few years. What about 
soil nutrition?  Has the tree depleted the soil of what it needs?  Then what 
to feed it? Do you have a good supply of compost? Enough for maybe in inch 
ground coverage under the tree and beyond the drop line. Or some low nitrogen 
fertilizer, something like 0-20-20.  

I admit I'm just guessing.

Jerry