Morris Burton Persimmon Tree

Pick Fruit Years Sooner With This Grafted Female Persimmon Tree

A seed-grown American persimmon is a gamble on flavor, on size, and on whether you get fruit at all. A grafted Morris Burton is none of those things.

• Exceptional flavor: Morris Burton is one of the few American persimmons named specifically for how good the fruit tastes, rich and honeyed with an apricot note that fresh-market Asian varieties never quite reach.
• Early, dependable production: A grafted tree often carries its first crop by the third year and then bears heavily and consistently, year after year.
• Grafted female selection: True to the parent tree and self-fruitful, so a single Morris Burton persimmon sets fruit without a male tree anywhere nearby.
• Cold-hardy American native: Thrives across USDA zones 5 through 9, reaching 40 to 60 feet with a 20 to 25 foot spread and a graceful upright form.
• Serious wildlife draw: Deer, turkey, birds, and squirrels find the ripe fruit fast, which makes this a proven anchor tree for food plots and wildlife orchards.

American persimmons are usually either male or female, and a seedling gives you no way to know which you planted until it flowers, which can take most of a decade. Plant a seedling and you may wait eight years to find out you own a male tree that will never fruit.

Grafting removes that risk entirely. Our Morris Burton persimmon trees are grafted from proven female wood onto American persimmon rootstock, so you know exactly what you are getting before it goes in the ground: a female tree, true to type, that fruits early and produces the flavor this cultivar built its reputation on.

One Tree Is All You Need

Morris Burton is self-fruitful and sets fruit through parthenocarpy, meaning it produces without pollination.

Fruit that develops without a pollinator comes in seedless, which most growers consider a feature rather than a compromise. If you want seeded fruit for propagation or for a heavier overall crop, planting American persimmon seedlings nearby will do it. For eating, cooking, and drawing wildlife, one grafted Morris Burton on its own is plenty.

What the Fruit Is Actually Like

Morris Burton is an astringent variety, which is the single most important thing to understand before your first harvest. Firm fruit is loaded with tannins and will pucker your whole mouth. Let it go completely soft, to the point where it feels like a water balloon in your hand, and it turns into something closer to honey custard.

Fruit ripens ahead of many American persimmons, which is part of why food plot managers plant it. In the Deep South, fruit softens and drops earlier in the fall. Farther north the tree tends to hold its crop well into winter, giving late-season forage when little else is available.

The soft pulp freezes well and works in puddings, jams, breads, and dried snacks. It is worth scooping and freezing whatever you cannot eat fresh.

Morris Burton Persimmon Tree Care

This is a low-maintenance native tree with no serious pest or disease problems. It is also moderately salt tolerant, which makes it a solid choice for coastal plantings where other fruit trees struggle.

• Sun: Full sun for the best fruit set, though it tolerates partial shade
• Soil: Adaptable to most soils, from sand to clay, as long as drainage is good. Avoid wet ground
• Spacing: 20 to 25 feet, more if you want the canopy to develop fully
• Water: Regular watering until established, then drought tolerant thanks to a deep taproot
• Fertilizer: None at planting. Apply a balanced slow-release feed in early spring once the tree is established, and go easy, since excess nitrogen causes premature fruit drop
• Pruning: Minimal. Remove dead or damaged wood and any suckers, and shape only to control size
• Growth rate: Moderate, roughly a foot per year

Shipped Potted and Ready to Plant, Not Bare Root

Your tree arrives rooted in soil in its nursery container, so there is no dormant shipping window to wait for and no bare-root recovery period once it lands.

Most mail-order persimmons ship bare root, which means you order in fall, wait for a narrow spring shipping window, and then hope the roots take. We do it differently. Our Morris Burton persimmon trees are container grown on our farm in Monticello, Florida, and they ship with an intact root ball in living soil. That means less transplant shock, a faster establishment, and a much wider planting window on your end.

Why Gardeners Trust Perfect Plants Nursery

Our family has grown and shipped trees from this same ground since 1980. Every tree that leaves here has been watered and packed by our own crew, which is the part a drop shipper cannot offer you. We stand by all our trees and shrubs and gaurantee you they arrive alive and ready to thrive. If you're unhappy, we'll replaced your tree.