North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Jwlehman@aol.com]

Hi Scott,

I keep forgetting ibiblio doesn't do color. I'll convert to bold to make it 
easier to follow.
> >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
> __________________
>