About this time of year our persimmon trees always remind me of Charlie Brown’s pitiful Christmas tree.
Ripe for the picking
Almost all the leaves are gone, but the ripe fruit hangs on, like ornaments on a bare Christmas tree.
Persimmons are a popular food source, judging by the amount of persimmon seeds in the poop I find around the mountain, but these prime specimens remain uneaten. Something seems to be chewing off the ends of branches of the two persimmon trees at the front corner of our lot. It leaves neat, conical stubs, and the separated branches end up on the ground under the trees. The branches are chewed off from ground level up into the upper reaches of the tree, 10 to 15 feet above the ground. I assume that an animal is chewing the limbs off to get better access to the fruit, but whatever is doing it doesn’t eat the persimmons, either from the tree or from the branches that end up on the ground.
Zeke seems pretty sure that some kind of animal is coming around the trees. I think he’s right. My best guess is raccoons or possums, but so far I haven’t seen any evidence of either except for the chewed limbs.
The fruits (and leaves) have all fallen from our persimmon trees here in the northern Piedmont. The fruits don’t seem to persist on our trees like yours are doing. In fact, almost all the fruits from our trees fall long before the leaves do. Keep an eye out for that twig-nibbler and fill us in if you find the culprit.
Our neighbors have a persimmon tree. It was full of fruit and no leaves last weekend. There really is something so interesting about a leafless tree full of bright orange fruit. It’s an invitation to critters for sure!
Scott — I keep looking but so far I haven’t seen anything. Whatever it is, it must not be too big because it seems to have climbed up onto some fairly thin branches.
Robin — The critters really do love them. In fact, I once saw my old dog Jesse standing up on her hind legs to pick persimmons off a tree in my parents’ yard. That was a long, long time ago.
‘Gotta’ correct myself, Mark. After I posted my comment about our persimmons, I looked at our trees again and realized I was wrong. The trees are leafless, but some of the fruits persist–just like yours.