@jrd51 … this string of text is from Cliffs site… describing Journey scion.
Rosseyanka X F-100 Female (Journey)
persimmon 2011
Sounds like he is saying Journey is a cross of Rosseyanka and F-100 Female ???
IDK…
I thought it got its early ripening from H118 ?
I see no mention of Kassandra ?
Where he says F-100 female … what exactly does he mean ? H118 ? Kassandra ?
Confused here…
The original description off of Cliff’s website, as shown in the first post, says no male flowers though.
@TNHunter – Maybe the site has conflicting info. When I just googled the site, I got text identical to the OP. See: Asian Persimmon Tree and American Persimmon Tree Catalog
The OP mentions a cross of Rossey x Great Wall, which is (I think) Kassandra. Technically it was Rossey 2 x Great Wall. So while Kassandra is not mentioned explicitly, I think it is implied.
p.s. This is off-topic but the same site says that the fruit on Kassandra is 2.50 to 2.75". My Kassandra was purchased from Englands. The fruit are nowhere near that large, more like 1.75". Does anybody get 2.50-2.75" Kassandra fruits?
F-100 is virtually a male with the occasional occurrence of tiny fruits which are inedible. I use it as a pollinator only.
Most of the persimmons I grafted this spring at our new home location… are mid to late season ripeners.
WS8-10, Kasandra, Nikitas Gift, Zima Khurma.
Cliff calls Kasandra mid season… and the others I think are more late season ripeners.
That is why I was trying to find early varieties to add next spring.
Here is what Cliff says on early varieties…
H118 very early (but gives no details).
Prok ripens late August in KY
Mohler ripens early Aug to early Sept.
Journey begins to ripen before all he has planted -first to fruit followed by J-59 ??? and then Prok.
If Journey ripens before prok and J-59 and Mohler and H118… sounds like it will at least be a early August ripener… may start ripening early Aug… and continue for a few weeks.
On his taste of vanilla mention on Journey…
I harvested persimmons from 8 or 9 different wild dv this fall… and the small tree roadside near our walmart… this is my 3rd year to harvest from it and this year it had a surprisingly good taste of vanilla… that was simply delicious.
If it continues to improve that with age… i will be grafting some of that here at my place.
I have 2 sticks of Journey ordered from Cliff… going to add it next spring… we will see just how early it ripens here in southern TN… and if that taste of vanilla is there… i am sure I will like it.
I have male and female wild dv all over my place (most likely 60c).
Do you know if 60c males will pollenate with 90c females ? Or with hybrids ?
Cliff mentions on a couple of his varieties (90c varieties) that they will be seedless south of the ohio river… which seems to be saying they will not pollenate with 60c males.
Thanks
FWIW, here WS8-10 / Barbra’s Blush appears to be much earlier than Kassandra. H63A is roughly contemporaneous with BB. There’s not much left of the season after Kassandra ripens, so mid-season in KY equates too late here. But not too late.
I just received delivery of H118, which I decided to try due to reported earliness and quality.
Good luck with Journey. Obviously I’m a little skeptical but I’d be happy learn that there is a very early ripening, good tasting variety.
@jrd51 . I had another board member message me yesterday and provide these details on BB.
WS8-10 is a later variety and the deeper cold (three freezes to around 24F) didn’t seem to ruin it (whereas it made 100-46 completely tasteless).
Sounds like BB can take some pretty serious frost on the tree and retain flavor… which may not happen with some other varities (100-46).
I wonder how well it would retain flavor if frozen for storage.
I have harvested fruit from a few different wild dv here in December which is after several frosts… and they were still delicious.
I have 4 wild dv set apart for grafting next spring.
Adding H118 and Journey… which should cover early to mid season with hopefully a very tasty American and Hybrid.
Adding H63A to one… not sure about the last one yet. Having both H63A and WS8-10… seems to be a little overkill. Sounds like they are similar large delicious and ripen about the same time.
I think the Kasandra NG ZK WS8-10… that i already have established should be all the mid to late persimmons i need.
I may just add some of my walmart roadside tree (taste of vanilla)… to the last one.
H118 was not “early” here compared to Prok or 100-46 or several other. I had WS8-10 dropping before it. H118 might be just the tree (or its planting location), but I picked them at about the same time as WS8-10. H120 was even later than H118 for me.
To me, I would plant any good tasting American persimmon varieties and not too worried about how late ripening they are. I have picked at least 8 American persimmon varieties fruits early, hard as rock with light yellow color and they are all ripened on the kitchen counter soft and tasted as good as the ripened ones fell off the tree soft . So go ahead and plant them all.
Tony
Great to know Tony. Thanks for sharing!
… With the slight catch that some persimmon varieties can be very late. I won’t say that deer magnet is a good variety, but when subjected to a hard freeze when still green, they turn this nice purple color and then will never ripen (inside the house or otherwise).
I have picked some that green before and they still can ripen on the counter in due time. Some takes more then to to 3 weeks.
That variety just stays like a rock for me. But, I didn’t put them in a bag or anything to prevent drying out. I figure it’s too much work either way compared to ones that don’t need the extra effort. But, something special could be the exception.
Found this (text below) in a post Feb 2022 by member October1 on early ripening persimmons.
…
I talked to Cliff a few times this year & he told me Journey is his earliest ripening persimmon, starting late July to early August. Followed closely by J-59.
…
Anyone know what J-59 is ?
This makes me feel a little better about trying out Journey. If it ripens that early in KY… may be even earlier for me in southern TN. Possibly mid July ripe persimmons.
Englands Orchard looks to be around 150 miles north of my location.
Edit… add later… found this mention in another post from a few years back…
J-59 Claypool – It is similar to H63A, but with a deep orange colored fruit, is a very upright grower, and drops fruit early. It is excellent for puddings and pies but best known for its aromatic aroma and true persimmon taste. Fruit is medium sized and is dark orange to red in color.
As far as I can tell Cliff no longer list J-59 persimmon.
Blake sells J-59. It’s another early one.
@jrd51 — on the size of Kasandra Persimmon…
On Cliff’s site he has this picture of Kasandra… with a pretty good size reference…
Each digit of the average mans finger is about 1 inch long. 2 digits 2 inches, all 3, 3 inches.
That works well for my fingers.
The hand and fingers pictured does not look overly large or small… That persimmon looks to be about 2 inch wide to me. It may be a bit taller than it is wide… so possibly 2.5 tall x 2 wide.
And right under that picture it says this…
A Kasandra Persimmon is a large fruit measuring about 2.50 to 3.00 inches.
The fruit pictured does not quite seem to measure up… but for me it would still be the biggest persimmon I have ever seen.
Looks like his Kasandra’s are ripening late ? there is snow on the ground in that pic.
That’s odd. All of the 15 or so fruits on my young BB graft ripened this year from mid October to early November. None of them experienced any frost at all – my first frost here happened this morning. [BB ripened at roughly the same time as H63A, which produced more. I think H63A is reported to be on the early side.]. Maybe more convincingly, a friend from WV mailed me ripe BB fruits from a young tree that arrived 10/06, which sounds fairly early. I’m sure that they never experienced frost either. In contrast, there are still unripe fruits on my tree from Dollywood.
Where is your source for there info on BB located?
That’s a very small persimmon. My Hana Fuyu can easily reach about 1/2 lbs each.
You can pretty much grow any of the big, no seed, sweet and crunchy Asian persimmons you want. You don’t need to limit your choices to very small set of hybrids and Americans. There’s a reason all commercial persimmons are Asians.
I’d just like data from other growers. I know that my Kassandras from a tree purchased from Cliff are not that large.
If you want to see bigger persimmons, get some Asians. Asian persimmons tend to be much larger than Americans. The hybrid JT-02 is small compared to pure PCNA Kakis such as its parent Taishu; but it is bigger than any American I’ve ever seen – ~100 g. My single Saiyo fruit was 2-3 x larger than my biggest Americans (Dollywood); so were my past IKKJ PCNA Kaki fruits; so were a pair of Hachiya that I bought last week in a store. [Edit: See @Shuimitao’s post above.]
@RedSun has published some very nice photos of Kassandra elsewhere in this forum. This one is 35 g, definitely not 2.5 - 3"; this one is just a bit smaller than mine. Another one pictured a bit later in the thread is 62 g, bigger but still not not as big as Cliff states.
