Japanese Persimmons

[Kevin Jones]

Will Japanese Persimmons continue ripening if picked early?
I have a nice bumper crop of Tanninashi, Eureka and Fuyu.
And I just want to beat the critters to them.
Birds. Possums. Squirrels. Rats. Mice.
Even Cockroaches love them!

Kevin

[Oolie]

They will, but they will get sweeter the longer you let them hang. I hardly ever got to taste any due to rats, but if you cage the fruit, you can protect them a little.

I think it's 0.5" pvc coated hardware cloth that people on here use to make mango cages.

[pagnr]

They can be after ripened with ethylene gas.
That is done in a chamber for commercial fruit.
Another trick is placing the fruit with a banana in a sealed plastic bag.
In Japan Kaki fruit were placed in empty Sake barrels to ripen them.
Might be worth checking out at what stage the crop is picked ?
I think they are at the orange yellow stage but still firm.
Not sure how earlier you could pick them.

[johnb51]

I think that, as long as they've reached full size and full color, they should ripen ok.  I know that birds love to peck at them.  (I don't think they need ethylene gas. )

[Kevin Jones]

My 6 trees are huge... and it would be impractical to cover them with a net.
I do have some green mesh drawstring bags I am experimenting with... but they are single fruit sized.
Hopefully they will camouflage the ripening fruit.

Kevin