American Persimmon-Pipher Seeds

currently unavailable Pipher- High fruit production-Hardy Central Illinois Strain

This strain was collected from the original Pipher tree in a small town in central Illinois. This extremely large tree is over 2 ft. in diameter and produces vigorous seedlings. Fruit production is very high. This strain is most likely the result of a chance seedling from a local population of persimmons that are not from cultivated selections. When I visited the tree many years ago the tree appeared to be the only one in the area but it still had fruit meaning it was possibly self fertile or I could not find where the male tree was!

All of the seedlings I have at my farm are very good yielders. Many of the male trees were strong growers as well. Definitely it was a good wild seed source from the small amount of seedlings that I 'tested'. For a while, I liked this seed strain so much I ordered a lot of them from Ralph Kreider who had access to the original tree. From what he told me, the owners of the tree, liked having him clean up the fruit on their lawn. I grew and sold the seedlings under the Pipher name. It was one seed source that never had winter damage. Many of the seedlings showed large leaves as well. I kept some of the seedlings and put them in a single row partly in the shade of northern pecans on a sandy hillside. Many of them exhibit the black coloration on the skin of the fruit which seems to add a caramel type flavor to the fruit. Most ripen starting in mid to late October and goes through December. Fruit often stays in the tree into January and drops slowly. 

Because of the large fruit sizes and the cold hardiness, this is a good seed source for the northern form of the American persimmon as well as developing cold hardy American persimmons and more vigorous forms of American Persimmon.