Journey is more cold hardy. No question about it here. We had widespread -25F to -29F in our area. JT-02 got zapped hard everywhere, mostly no signs of life (and I’m not entirely heartbroken). A Journey right next to a JT-02 is perfectly fine with growth popping out all over.
Not sure how cold I got exactly. My thermometer locked up at -17F for the entire night. Battery proabbly too low. By the time the sun was up and I thought to unplug and plug it back in, it read -22F IIRC.
Wow, that’s remarkably cold hardy for a hybrid!
Thanks for sharing the data. This is one I have scions for to graft in a few weeks.
How established/large is the tree?
@snowflake … does your Journey hybrid have a red tint to new growth ? and longer pointy leaves… somewhat of a spreading growth habit.
My Kasandra wants to grow straight up… but Journey growth just sort of flops around.
My Journey was grafted last year and I really like the way it looks… my prettiest persimmon by far.
I will be glad when it fruits… supposed to have taste of vanilla. Love that in a persimmon.
Hopefully I never really test its cold hardiness… our low was 12F this winter.
TNHunter
Good questions. Idk. Got the cutting from Cliff. The same variety of persimmon can differing shades of red of new growth (more or less) in the same orchard depending on where they are planted, or what mood they are in. I haven’t paid too much attention to it. My Journey is just getting enough new growth this year that I can see the start of blooms. It’s maybe 9’ tall (and has wanted to grow up but it has some shade to the west). I pruned it back a year ago. Just over 1" diameter. I only grafted one as I wanted to see cold hardiness (and fruit quality) before playing too many hybrid winter death games. JT-02 sucks here in the cold. And it has ripened late so I have to pick and counter ripen it which is a PITA. The JT-02 that got zapped were fairly good diameter.
I might be too early in the game of growing Journey to tell too much, but I’m beginning to think it might be a go-to for Northern Growers. With what you related about it’s hardiness, it’s sounding better and better. I grafted it last spring, and kept the tree in a walk-in refrigerator over winter to protect the tender graft the first year. I planted it out this spring when temperatures were still freezing. Of the 50+ persimmon trees I have, it seems to be one of the latest to leaf out. It was in the '80s and '90s last week, today we’re having snow and a low of 27. Late is a huge positive in many northern climes. Of course the million dollar question is, “Is it the variety or the rootstock?”
As far as cold hardiness, that seems right based on this limited data. But what do we know about ripening? Late bud break is great, so long as it doesn’t go with late ripening.
Cliff’s website describes it as his earliest ripening persimmon, before J-59 and Prok.
That’d work in my Z7A, for sure.
