Persimmons
Persimmons are a native fruit that have gotten a bad rap because that older cousin of yours tricked you into tasting an unripe one. Wait until the fruit is soft (it is NOT necessary to wait for a frost), and you can be rewarded with a super-sweet, vitamin-laden delicacy! And, in general, the American persimmon is one of the easiest fruits to grow, with tent caterpillars one of their few pests (just pull the tents from the tree with a long stick and stomp on them!).
The persimmon is a dioecious species, which means that individual trees are either wholly male or wholly female. The persimmon is also wind pollinated, so in the Ozarks you don’t have to worry about pollination because there is always some male tree whose pollen will blow its way to your female trees. In other words, a single tree of our improved, named and grafted varieties will suffice—you do not have to buy another for cross pollination purposes.
