North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Jwlehman@aol.com]

Hi Scott,

I'll insert in blue.

> 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.  
> Good, 
> OK. 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?  You bring up an 
> interesting 
> thought and you may be on to something.  Persimmon naturally prune off 
> limbs that are heavily shaded. My thought on this has always been, less sun 
> lower sugars being made and maybe stored in the branch making it weaker. So 
> if a branch has many fruits it could have less nutrients stored because it 
> fed the fruits. Then that weaker branch could drop off same as heavily 
> shaded branches. This could cause the tree to have more male flowering 
> branches. 
> If that is a possibility how to cure it? I don't think pruning limbs alone 
> would be the answer. Maybe thinning fruits on heavily bearing limbs would 
> be better. 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. 
> Maybe remove some of the male flowering branches and thin fruits, both. I'd 
> select male branches to prune that shade fruiting branches to give them 
> more 
> sun.  Keep in mind, I'm guessing. I really don't know. 

Good Luck. Bad news is it will take a few years to see if this works, but 
you don't have much to loose.  

Jerry