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I've been wanting to plant a persimmon tree for a while, but there has been a shortage of them for sale due, as I understand it, to a lack of people to do grafting (I live in NZ - so an island with plant import restrictions)

I possibly have the opportunity to purchase a 3 year old FUYU grown from a cutting from a home gardener in a pot (so true to type fruit) which is showing its first flowers - or, for a comparable price - but a lot more hassle as its quite far away - get a much smaller grafted major nursery plant which will fruit in 2-3 years.

I've been unable to discover what rootstock the nursery uses. Also - if it makes a difference - I need to contend with an environment with clay soil. (I plan to amend the soil and mound the plant to try mitigate this)

Can anyone advise if FUYU persimmons particularly benefit from grafting or if this is mainly a convenient way for a nursery to grow true-to-type plants faster?

davidgo
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Lacking input from anyone more "in-the-know" about persimmons specifically, the only specific "benefit" I found with regard to persimmon grafting was dwarfism, and if it's not mentioned by the nursery, it's probably not dwarfing rootstock.

I did find several mentions of grafting Fuyu to generic persimmon rootstock as a normal thing, and to people growing it from cuttings.

One advantage to growing it from cuttings, particularly if the supply is tight where you are, is that you can make root divisions for propagation as well as rooting twigs. It will also mean that if for some reason the top of the tree is severely damaged by wind or storm, whatever grows back from the roots will still be Fuyu.

Ecnerwal
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