Rossyanka and JT-02 are the most cold hardy for me in Zone 5.
Tony
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@tonyOmahaz5,
Taste is ok? Can they be grown without special protection? Is England’s the best place to get scion wood? Thank you!
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I ordered a few Japanese persimmons from Willis orchard Company who claimed they were hardy to zone 6. Not True! They have died down to the rootstock which appears to be kaki. Now I am looking for something to graft onto them. I found a website Asian Persimmon Tree and American Persimmon Tree Catalog that describes some promising options. @tonyOmahaz5 Have you tried Kasandra, Zima khurma =NB-02, Korea Kaki or Cinebuli?
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Interesting. I’ve always considered growing them here, but we occasionally get down to -20F or colder. I’ve eaten them before and enjoy the flavor (when fully ripe), but I don’t care for the consistency and I’m curious what most of you do with them. There’s another thread on the board about raccoon damage and I have to admit to once making a huge pot of raccoon fruit paste bait out of some wild persimmon. It worked great.
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Clark, what are you doing growing Lotus? was the intent as rootstock?
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Clark,
Rossyanka can handle the cold to -20F without no Winter damage. JT-02, I Winter protected it the first year and now on it 3rd leaf and can handle -12F for several nights the last few years. I got my scions from England.
Parallel,
I got a 7 years old Nikita’s Gift Hybrid. I have baby this one for all those years with Winter protection. The fruit is excellent but not very cold hardy for a Hybrid. Lots of died back at -10F. I liked Rossyanka a lot. Very productive and very cold hardy to -20 F. I Winter protected it the first year to get the bark harden.
JT-02 has very rich and sweet taste per Cliff and SMC.
I got 2 Kassandra but one of them died at -9F last Winter without protection and the other survived with protection. I will baby it for a couple more years to get it bigger and I will test it without any Winter protection. So it is not as cold hardy as Rossyanka and JT-02.
Chinebuli died at -9F.
I will topwork most my American persimmon understocks to JT-02 because of the excellent taste, cold hardy to my Zone 5 and the leaves are large just like a Kaki.
Tony
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Hi Clark,
You can get your wood from Jerry Lehman. I have his email or phone #. Send a message if you’re interested. It’s sort of fun/interesting talking with Jerry on the phone because his knowledge surpasses anyone else in the Unites States and I’m sure he’s a huge player in the world.
I’ve talked with him many times and he’s got the trees you want. He can tell you what’s best for your exact climate right off the top of his head.
Dax
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Tony brings up a good point that you probably need to help some of these hybrids and cold hardy kakis along for a few years to build up their cold tolerance. I’ve planted Korea Kaki for the past two winters, left them unprotected, and both times they died.
I also think it’s important to keep in mind that all grafted persimmons come on seedling rootstock. There’s a lot of variability in how cold hardy those rootstocks are too. I’ve had some American persimmon seedlings have a lot of die-back here in zonee 6. So if you can, I think it’s best to grow out rootstock for yourself and graft whatever you want on it, or do what Tony does and bury the graft union below the soil.
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@strudeldog,
Just growing something I hadn’t before to see how they would do here. Figured if I grew some of both rootstock by the time they were grown good hybrids would be available.
@tonyOmahaz5,
Thanks sounds like they are worth a try.
@Barkslip,
Thank you for the kind offer I’ve heard that name before. I will send you an email if I decide to go that route.
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Possible because the leaves are dark green and shiny.
Here is my JT-02 bark grafted on a 4 years old Knightville American persimmon understock. I did this graft in early May.
Tony
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Tony,
I grafted persimmon on May 2, they have just started growing like 1/2" growth. What do you feed your tree/graft with?
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Just the lawn fertilizer. I think the 4 years old understock and 4 1/2 feet up a large trunk really helps pushing growth on the graft. I literally had to rubbed of growth under the union every few days.
Tony
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That’s it, grafting on an established rootstock. Mine is on a branch of a relatively young Nikita’s Gift.
Last year it had a few flowers but they fell off. This year I saw one flower, probably will fall off again.
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Hi, I’m new here and share the same passion for persimmons and rare hybrids. I live in europ and have to say I am little bit jeallous 
when I see how easy it is for you to get some new rare cultivars.
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I think hybrid persimmons might make a good rootstock for both kaki and american persimmons. For kaki because they might help prevent SPDS, which seems to be a delayed compatibility issue. For american persimmons because they might help dwarf the trees and keep them more manageable for an orchard setting. It’s something I’m going to experiment with going forward.
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I’ve never experienced SPDS with my kakis. But I’ve wondered the same thing. In fact, all of my new persimmon plantings are hybrids grafted onto D.V. rootstock. The D.V. rootstock is tolerant of my poor clay “soil,” but the hybrids are far more vigorous. I plan to use the hybrids as interstems for any future Kakis.
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I like that idea too, and would do it if I could graft persimmons with greater consistency. For now I’m growing out about twenty hybrid persimmons from seed and will use most of the males for rootstock.
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Here’s a photo of seven of my oldest hybrid persimmons. Most of them are three or four years old and about six feet tall. I’m hoping they’ll produce fruit in a year or two. They all have a male offspring of Rosseyanka as the pollen parent, and from there have various mixes of Giboshi, Honan Red, H-118, and Elmo.
These are two year old open pollinated Rosseyanka seedlings. You can see that they have much more of the American persimmon look to their leaves.
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Steven,
Looks very promising. What was the lowest temp these guys handled so far.
Tony
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