LAWRENCE, Kan. — Is a type of fruit native to the area a sign of how bad a winter it will be? There’s an old folklore about persimmons. Some people believe you can predict winter conditions based on what you find when you open the seed.
“They’re ripe when they’re soft and wrinkly,” said Mark Lumpe, who grows persimmons on his farm; Wakarusa Valley Farm in Lawrence.
The cutlery-shaped formation inside persimmon seeds is a hot debate topic when it comes to winter.
“There’s always been this folklore passed down, like all folklores, from generation to generation, that by splitting open, cutting open the persimmon seed, the little hard, round seed inside the fleshy pulp, you can predict the weather,” said Dennis Patton, a horticulture agent with Johnson County K-State Research and Extension.
He says the folklore goes back to early settler days when there wasn’t sophisticated weather equipment.
“I can find no validity that says it really does work,” said Patton.
The belief is when you cut a seed in half, you will either see a spoon, fork, or knife — each holds a different forecast for the upcoming winter.
“If it’s formed like a shovel, or a spoon, then that would predict that we’re going to have a lot of snow, and a cold winter,” said Patton. “If it’s more in the shape of a fork, that’s going to mean more light snow, maybe not quite as heavy a snow.”
“If you get the knife, that means you’re going to get an icy winter, so you kind of have to cut through the ice,” Patton added.
Patton says it is summer weather patterns that have more bearing on what you’ll find when you cut into the seed.
“I think it probably has to do more with the stress that the plant was under when it was being formed,” Patton said.
He says it’s more about camaraderie and folklore than it is about science.
“There is no non-biased, research based, scientific information that says there really is a correlation over a long period of time, to really say whether the persimmon really does predict the weather pattern,” said Patton.
“We just opened one up and I’d say we got what I’ve been hearing on Accuweather, fluctuating cold and warm weather, nothing like last year, but not mild either,” said Lumpe.
Lumpe thinks it was probably a coincidence that someone was cracking the seeds and noticed the different patterns.
“The seed is not usable, so if you’re going to be cooking with them or something you want to get all the seeds out and if you’re eating them you spit the seeds out, so why would anyone ever crack a seed?” Lumpe said. “Once they started cracking the seed, they noticed this pattern.”
There’s only one way to find out and only time will tell.
Patton says a little brown and black caterpillar called the Woolly Worm is another common folklore, among many others. He says people believe the fuzzier it is, the worse winter will be, and the less hairy, the more mild winter will be. Again, he says there’s not a strong connection to predicting weather.
