North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>]

Jerry, I did put some compost, fertilizer, and bark mulch on the tree this 
spring (and every previous spring) so I the soil should be good.  The flower 
types do seem to cluster by branchlet.  I wonder if older branches are more 
likely to turn to male flowers and I need to let the tree send up some new 
shoots which will start female?  When the flowering is done this year I will 
give parts of the tree with no fruits a strong pruning and see what that does 
for next year.

Scott

On May 30, 2012, at 7:03 AM, Jwlehman@aol.com wrote:

> 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
> 
> 
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