I thought I’d lost my Dar Sofiyivki grafts from last season. We had a crazy mild winter punctuated by a few cold nights., the coldest of which was -18F. The wispy growth from the late grafts was less than ideal to start with. I see one bud pushing though. Hopefully more to follow.,
I put foam pipe insulation over these ones. Looks like it may be as low as 27 here tonight.
So far, only Dar Sofiyevki and Bozhyj Dar have shown significant winterkill. Both were grafted to several rootstock, and quite late in the season Height of grafts varied between 1-4 ft. Caliper varied too on the winterkilled stuff, from wispy stuff I expected to have trouble all the way up to nearly pencil diameter.
Was Rossyanka and JT-02 still your hardiest hybrids? Have heard JT-02 is the preferred of the two.
"
Mikkusu (JT-02) Persimmon
(Diospyros virginiana x Diospyrus kaki)
Full Sun to Part Sun. It is supposed to be a Semi dwarf on seedling roots. Hybrid with very large fruit 2.5-3″ astringent until ripe, small ornamental tree with spreading growth habit, zone 5-8"
" Diospyros virginiana x kaki hybrid ‘Mikkusu’ aka JT-02
Variety description: This is the most cold hardy hybrid persimmon we have grown. It has survived and thrived without any winter die back for several growing seasons in our cold zone 6a garden. 2.25" fruit fully ripens even in cold zone 6 Connecticut. Fruit is round and flattish, similar in shape to a Fuyu persimmon. Flavor of fully ripe fruit is sweet like an Asian persimmon with a hint of rich butterscotch. This the fruit is astringent until ripe.
In the absence of a male pollinator, this tree will bear seedless fruit.
The tree resembles a kaki persimmon with broad, glossy foliage.
This hybrid originated in Japan in and was imported into the United States in the early 2000s by the late great persimmon enthusiast and breeder Jerry Lehman of Terre Haute Indiana. We received our original tree from persimmon guru Cliff England."
i received some scionwood this season of a Ukrainian hybrid called ‘Sosnovskaya’. I havent heard much buzz about it. Searching for it turned up a short Ukrainian white paper about it, but not much else.
Does anyone on list have this variety fruiting? Im wondering about hardiness and ripening time.
Those look great. Will you grow them out completely or are you going to take a cutting of them next spring and graft it to a more mature persimmon rootstock to get results quickly.
@Robert shared a seed with me of your Meader x 400.5 cross and it is growing well. That seed was so much smaller than any other persimmon seed I’ve seen. I will let you know how it turns out. So far it looks like most American seedlings I’ve grown, which I guess makes sense since it is mostly Virginiana.
I planted both ‘Kasandra’ and ‘Mikkusa’ when Cliff let me know he had a 6’ tall one available, before he listed them for sale. So maybe 6 years on JT-02 and 8 for ‘Kasandra’. Both over 10’ tall last I saw them several years ago ( in customer’s yards), and sailed through the 22° below week we had 3 winters ago. Both fruited nicely very quickly and leaned toward kaki type fruit. One customer used the pulp in sweet potato pie, other used her pulp in oatmeal/molasses cookies.
I have several trees and 2 different strains.
The scar appears later and not every year.
The other is more specific. Michel Zeldi sent it to me. This year I had male flowers on it. Normally this strain only produced female flowers. However, it bore fruit last year and it is indeed a Cherniaev who bears the scar. I had put the photo of its fruit last year.
The hybrid fruit-bearing pollinator surprises with abundant flowering. male buds and different shapes of fruits. Variety (or form) Transheynaya. Nikolaev, Ukraine.
I don’t know if this question has been answered before, but are hybrid persimmons worth growing if both American and Asian persimmons will grow in your area? I love the flavor of American persimmons and Asian ones are fully hardy here, so I’m wondering if there is any advantage to growing a hybrid. I have a small Kassandra, but I haven’t decided if I want to put it in the ground or just graft a branch onto one o my kakis.
I agree with @ramv - I would recommend Sestronka (NB-21) and Nikita’s Gift for unique flavor if cold-hardiness isn’t a concern. I prefer them to most of my kakis for flavor (but I haven’t tasted any pollinated PVA or PVNA types yet), and they have better size and texture than most Americans. In terms of taste they aren’t identical to either kaki or Americans. Kassandra tastes fine but is on the small side. I haven’t been as impressed with JT-02 yet after two seasons - the fruits are fairly large for hybrids, and I would be grateful for its hardiness if I couldn’t grow in-ground kakis, but I don’t think it has anything special in terms of flavor.
My problem with JT-02 last year was it took a long time to lose astringency, and was very watery by then. Also some astringency remained near the center and calyx. It was a very strong astringency that took away from the gustatory experience. I have several dozen this year to get a better feel. Maybe it was just the growing conditions, a gift or curse of nature.
seems to me thats where youre apt to find it. In some persimmons like Prok, the calyx tends to come free with a plug of white heart. Removing that can help if so, IME. Hopefully astringency gets less as the years wane on. Not sure how old your JT-02 is, but It took a bunch of years before my Prok trees made good persimmons. If Id have been less stubborn, I might have even given up on them
