I was making an order at Bay Laurel online the other day and added a Maru persimmon at the last minute without really researching it. Their entry for it lists it as astringent and Self-fruitful so I thought it should be fine. Later I see on other sites it's listed as pollination variant. The only other persimmon varieties that my Maru will be exposed to will be Saijo and Nikita's Gift. Will either one of these serve to pollinate, and if not, will the taste of the ripe, but unpollinated fruit be okay? My main use of these will be dried. Thanks!

From personal experience, all your persimmon fruit will have seeds if you plant the maru, excellent pollinator. I cut the chocolate branch off and no seeds on any persimmons.

Thanks, Mr. Texas. I did find out while browsing the web that there are a number of different varieties that go by the name of "Maru". One of which is the Chocolate that you mentioned. However the BL catalog lists Chocolate under a seperate entry, so I am assuming that their Maru is not Chocolate -- of course I may be wrong. This could also mean that their version of Maru really doesn't need to be pollinated for best taste.

I did notice for COFFEECAKE (Nishimura Wase) that they write Chocolate or Saijo will serve to pollenate. If so, then maybe my Saijo would work for the Maru too.

Too many questions -- maybe someone here has Bay Laurel version of Maru?

To expand a little on the list of varieties that are named Maru (="round" in Japanese), I found the following names on the web. With the exeption of the last one, which I believe may/may not be the same variety as Chocolate, I found unfortunately no futher information:

Maru Gata
Daidai Maru
Shimo-maru
Zenji Maru (PVNA): was discovered in the Kanagawa Prefecture and is widely used as a pollinating cultivar in Japan. It bears many male flowers which produce abundant pollen. The fruit is small (average 120 g), however with poor texture, and is very seedy. Quality is inferior, but seeds may have a use for propagation of rootstocks. In Japan 'Zenijimaru' matures in mid October onwards. The tree is moderately vigorous, spreading, very productive, but has a strong tendency to biennial bearing. (extracted from: "Persimmon Culture in New Zealand" by Kitagawa and Glucina, 1984)

I have Zenji Maru and Orange County Maru. Both remained astringent when firm, pollinated or not. I either have the wrongly labeled cultivars, or their pomological categories are misclassified. Based on their fruit tastes and how they ripen, they are better classified as PVA type. Pollination variant astringent. The PVA types have slightly changed flavor when they are pollinated but would still remain astringent until very soft ripe. They also have those characteristic dark flesh around the seeds, but not throughout the entire flesh unlike most PVNA types.

Their tastes are just sub-par compared to my 51 other persimmons. At any rate, they provide excellent pollinators for my PVNA types: CoffeeCake and Chocolate persimmons.

Saijo can be pollinated by other persimmons as well, but bear in mind that persimmons have separate male and female flowers and so timing or bloom overlap between males and females can be an issue. If the males are dehiscing while the females are receptives, then you would have good fruit sets, and a ton of seeds. That is where my maru types come in handy, they always have male flowers every year and sometimes will still produce male flowers long its female flowers have set, ensuring me endless supply of seeds that I love to spit out.

Many thanks, Joe. That the Saijo does indeed produce male flowers is welcome news.

I'm fairly certain that BL gets its stock from Dave Wilson Nursery. Both sites give the same description of their Maru variety:

Medium size, orange-red, round fruit. Beautiful glossy skin. If cross-pollinated, flesh is dark cinnamon color and seeded. Very sweet, rich flavor, excellent quality. 200 hours. Self-fruitful.

I'm crossing my fingers hoping that this one is better than the ones that you and Mr. Texas have. There's at least one web article that extols the taste of a Maru variety: http://www.epicurious.com/gourmet/good_living/maru

Gene, thanks for noticing that. I think I looked up the wrong data column when describing Saijo from my spreadsheet. You are correct that it bears only female flowers. Here's my correct data:

Saijo
It produces medium sized fruits. A pollination constant astringent (PCA) type. Fruits must be completely soft ripe before it can be eaten. Fruit shape is conical, with a roundish cross section. Best time to harvest is when fruits have orange skin color. When ripe, flesh color is yellow without pollination (parthenocarpic). Sugar content of the fruit is low. This variety is mainly used for fruit production. The female flowers are medium sized. Fruit production has high reliability. Cultivar originated from Japan. A vigorous tree. Its fruits ripen intermediately in the season. Fruits when properly ripened are eaten as snacks, candied or preserved. It has low parthenocarpic fruit sets. It bears female flowers only. It has good grafting compatibility on Diospyrus lotus rootstock.


When properly ripened, Saijo is the best tasting persimmon from my yard.