Saijo Persimmon

This tree arrived in perfect condition. It looks like it is healthy and should grow well. I planted it next to a Hachiya, in hopes of pollination improvement. Seven more year for fruit? OK. I'm 82, and I have hopes of eating some of that fruit. The Hachiya bore for the first time last year. I planted my orchard starting in 2008, all with trees from Raintree Nursery. Asian pear, peaches, plums, cherries, quince, filberts. It is a fine orchard, bearing nicely. Unfortunately there is no room for anything more.

This is a 7 year old tree and it produced a lot of these fruits this year. Although, ripening before frost comes hasn’t usually happen it’s said that after first hard frost astringent ones like this Saijo suppose to ripen it and it has. I’m going to try the long task of drying/massaging some over a period of a month to see what Saijo has been named after(the best one). Picture without leaves was in Oct. 2023. This year’s tree with leaves taken yesterday. Saijos are quite smaller, and I suppose they will get bigger as the tree ages.

We now have 4 different persimmon varieties that are currently bearing fruit. Nikita's gift, Izu, Meader, and Saijo.
Meader is earliest (and smallest) fruit of the season (early Oct.) then Izu (just a bit later), Nikita's gift (Oct to early Nov.) and Saijo. All have good to great flavor, Nikita's gift is my favorite. Saijo has wonderful flavor but the fruits were heavily frost damaged when still green, and the frost damaged parts of the fruit do not ripen. We are in East Puget Sound lowlands, Cascade foothills (Snoqualmie/Issaquah area), zone 7B. This year our first hard frost was late October. Saijo and Izu persimmons got hit and frost damaged. Not too bad on Izu but the frost damaged parts don't ripen either. Saijo much more damaged. We picked the rest this week before our second hard frost hit. Still lots of olive green on fruits, not fully orange, but they seem to be coloring up OK inside. Nikita's gift and Meader tolerated frost with no damage, and they ripen well inside after picking too. An abundant fruit year this year! 2023. Saijo may not be here in the future if the early frost consistently damages the fruit.

I bought and planted the Fuijo and Fuyu pair next to each other in October 2015. This year, 2023, 8 years after planting them, Fuijo made 53 LB of delicious fruit. I am in PA, and they start ripening in mid November. The Fuyu this year made few and small fruits for the first time. We are hopeful that next year we will be inundated of Fuyu persimmons as well!

When this “tree” arrived I was very surprised and honestly quite disappointed due to my not knowing what to expect with a bare root tree.
I received a stick that seemed long dead and dry , with soilless roots that bore no sign of life, nor life to come.
I promptly emailed raintree and received a reply explaining the nature of the dormant tree stock that is kept in cold storage at 33• until it’s ready to ship.
Sure enough, just a few days later the life in the dormant stick becomes apparent. We are eagerly awaiting the unfolding leaves to come soon!