Persimmon tree info please

DBCooper

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
How many years from planting to producing fruit enough to have deer come to them?

Thanks.
 

Eric Revo

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Persimmon trees are a great draw and produce in just a couple of years, bad thing about planting them is you never know how many males and how many females you will get and only the female trees produce fruit. They are also very easily damaged since they are brittle trees and tend to do better as undergrowth trees.
There may be some nursery's that will guarantee the sex of a tree but you can bet those will be expensive compared to the ones that will sell you a switch (young tree with little or no branching)for next to nothing.
I think for the money a good scattering of gobbler and regular sawtooth oaks and some muscadine vines would provide plenty of soft mast for early and later in the season. Both are easy to grow and neither need to be sexed as long as multiple are planted in the area.
You may think about pears as well, there are several varieties that can be rust and blight resistant and will produce lots of soft mast in the early season. Keiffer will also cross pollinate with the "wild" pears and there will be volunteers coming up everywhere in just a few short years that produce smaller fruit that is edible to lots of critters.
 

kilerhamilton

Old Mossy Horns
Prune the tops properly and they will not break.
Keep the bottom protected and mulched.
I recommend pear trees. Cheaper and perfect for killing deer during bow season.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

duckmauler

Eight Pointer
Hope you have better luck than I do. I’ve planted ~20, Fuyu and American and have 3 left standing that appear to be alive. The fuyu were $100 for 3. I won’t make that mistake again.
 

Deerherder

Ten Pointer
Planted some Fuyu last winter & they fruited this year. I’m going to add 2-3 more this winter along with a pear tree.

The plants were about 4.5-5 feet tall when I planted them. They didn’t gain much height, but they did fruit this fall.
 
Last edited:

Redheadduck

Eight Pointer
Planted some Fuyu last winter & they fruited this year. I’m going to add 2-3 more this winter along with a pear tree.

The plants were about 4.5-5 feet tall when I planted them. They didn’t gain much height, but they did fruit this fall.
Have you had any issues with deer over browsing them? Or did you protect them somehow? I'd like to plant a few for the critters and maybe one at the house.
 

poppop

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
I don't think you have a problem with deer browsing them unless there are no other brush in the area. I hunt a area I call the Persimmon field. That is because there are so many small wild persimmon trees I have to keep them bush-hogged down They come from the cattle there eating the persimmons from the many large trees in the pasture. Some of these trees are bearing fruit when they are only head high.
 
Top