@Noname … another bonus for grafting… if you pick a variety and you end up not liking it for some reason… graft it over to another variety.
Or once you get your 4 trees established… you could add 1 more variety to each of those by grafting… and have 8 varieties or more…
Grafting is the solution for easily and cheaply obtaining the varieties you really want.
Good luck on deciding on all these persimmon varieties. Be sure you consider ripening times… get some early, mid, late ripeners.
TNHunter
Has anyone had a chance to see (and taste) of Stark Bros claim about Elmo being non-astringent and disease resistant are true?
I’m having a hard time finding this information. Every variety I find seems to either not mention ripening time, or say very early to early ripening. Sometimes I’ll find a thread where someone in z5 mentions a mid or late variety not ripening for them. That last bit makes me worried about getting anything but early, especially since everyone talking about ripening times says early is important. It seems everyone’s favorites are the early ones.
What are your thoughts?
Mohler is suggested above because it is extremely early ripening which matches your climate. Morris Burton is a bit later maturing but should still work for 6B. TNHunter is in zone 7b/8a so he has a lot more runway for ripening later varieties. I’m about 60 miles south from him in the southern edge of Tennessee.
@Noname … if you have not already… check out Cliff’s descriptions on the Englands Orchard site.
He gives ripening times on some but not all.
I have Mohler American and Journey Hybrid… per Cliffs notes both very early. He says that Journey is the first to ripen in his orchard and it has taste of vanilla (which I love).
You might find some details there that will help you decide.
Also… each fall several board members go to Englands Orchard for a visit and fruit tasting and there are post here on the fruit board with those details… many of those taste test reports… is why I have H63A and H118…
Hope this helps!!!
Where can I find those posts that they’ve made from the taste tests? They could be very helpful!
Thanks for the link to the website- it seems I can get just about any variety I want from him when they’re in stock!
England's Orchard Tour - 10/9/23?
There is a link to the one last fall.
At the top… click the magnifying glass symbol… search on like England’s Orchard.
I would start out reading this thread Who's Growing Improved American Persimmons? Suggestions welcome! and this one DEC - DONALD EUGENE COMPTON PERSIMMON Varities it has likely been said there. Southern Missouri is a warm 6b and i feel you can grow any of the american types.
On further research, I’ve seen quite a number of people say that H-118 (Prairie Star) doesn’t produce in hot weather, but they don’t say what “hot weather” is. Where I live, there’s little rain all summer, and it frequently stays sunny in the 90s during the day. Does anyone know how hot “hot” is?
You should be able to grow any of the main named persimmon varieties with no worries. Early, late, doesn’t matter. Your zone is probably similar to Cliff England in a lot of ways.
Persimmon love heat. Don’t worry about it. They are like corn with bark 
Had to laugh at “they are like corn with bark”. I’ve been impressed with heat and drought tolerance of my recently planted persimmon grafts. I lost one, but a dozen more are looking fantastic. I have a backup for the one I lost.
MB is E/M ripening in areas where the sun shines which has been my experience. It had an extended harvest period, ripening throughout the month of Sept according to Claypool.
MB is a smallish persimmon… I have seen pictures… i have heard people call it sweet only… very sweet but that was it… no real flavor other than sweetness.
If that is true… I would not like that myself.
But then again I have heard it said that MB retains its flavor well thru processing… heating, freezing… where many persimmons do not.
I’m very familiar with your area since its not very far from Kansas. Trees grow there like weeds do here. I’m pretty sure as long as you can find some dirt to plant a tree in it will grow better than any other place in the world. Flint and other rocks are everywhere since most of Southern Missouri is just old mountains warn down by time. Mostly its covered with oak trees there , walnuts, occasionally butternut, sassafras, pawpaw, native persimmons, and lots of ticks and copperheads. Beautiful land for beef and hogs etc. There is underground water everywhere there and sometimes the springs are above ground. Your a fortunate person with the mark twain natiomal park nearby which brings an abundance of wildlife. Pick a persimmon you can proably grow it. I would look at a few of the hybrids as well in your situation. Like i said your a warm 6 b because of the micro climates there that you all refer to as hollers in between those ancient warn down mountains. If you back some persimmons up on the southern slope of a hill with another to the north of it i think you can get the equivelent of a zone 7 planting area. @Derby42 may some suggestions of fruits that work well for him in Missouri. Im not sure if he is growing named persimmons or natives. You can always graft some named types to the wild ones. H118 grafts easily.
When it comes to early persimmons… based on Cliffs descriptions…
Mohler ripens early Aug - early Sept.
It is a Med size fruit… exceptionally sweet with complex fruity flavors.
Englands Orchard is 200 miles north of me so this one could srart ripening here in late July.
I know of no wild persimmons here that ripen in July or even early August… so that would be nice to have. He speaks highly of the flavor and sweetness too.
Journey Hybrid… he says is the first persimmon to ripen in his orchard… so it must be a little earlier than Mohler.
I have both Mohler and Journey (grafted succeaafully this spring).
H118 Early Jewell… he says Very Early (but gives no dates)…Large size fruit… i heard a few members reporting on the taste of H118 last fall… some were saying it might even be better than H63A. I got a scion this spring and grafted it.
I should have the early season covered well with those 3.
I have a Prok… which is later than the 3 above… might call it early/mid season.
I have several others (American and Hybrids) that should cover mid and late season ripening…
H63A, (WS8-10 Barbara’s blush)… Kasandra, Nakitas Gift, (JT02 Mikkusu) Zima Khurma.
I think ZK will be my latest to ripen.
I have one early non astringent asian… Cardinal and one later non astringent asian IKKJiro.
I have one graft of Saijo (astringent asian)… that is struggling from psyllid attack. I am babying it trying to get it to pull thru.
No American persimmon is going to be fully astringent until fully ripe. Claims to the contrary for certain varieties almost always means that they aren’t quite as soft as full ripeness. All improved persimmon varieties will have lost all their astringency (or almost all for some varieties) by the time they are fully ripe. That is, ripe enough to shake loose from the tree.
To answer your question about the specks, they are purely cosmetic. In all persimmons, the tannins don’t go away, they just become insoluble. In some varieties the insoluble tannins clump together in the black specks, but they are just more evenly spread out in the varieties with little to no black specks.
Most persimmons are going to look pretty soft and wrinkly by the time they’re ready to eat, but probably not quite as extreme as the average wild type. H-63A is supposed to be much more aesthetically pleasing than other varieties when fully ripened.
I hear you on the hesitation to learn a new skill. Unfortunately with persimmons, so few businesses offer these varieties commercially that often the only reliable way to get what you want is by grafting. If you lived close by, is be happy to show you how. I will say, though, that if your grafts don’t take, the trees give you another chance each year.
Thank you for all your opinions and information! It gives me a lot to think about…though I’m close to just giving up and increasing the number of varieties to 6. 2 more isn’t so bad, right? But then, I have 20 grapes on my “must-have” list, so I’m really bad at keeping the numbers down. Really thought I could do it this time.
Clarkinks: unfortunately, our land isn’t a tree-growing utopia you’re thinking of. Rather, it’s old timber turned pasture land that’s nearly stripped of NPK and some micronutrients. The ph is all over the map, too, according to the soil tests we’ve done. It’s taking a lot of time, energy, and money to make this land decent for food plants, though the wild oaks seem to be doing well enough if you don’t count their lack of acorns and the fact that their few acorns are worm infested. Poison ivy does the best here—ugh! The abundant wildlife has proven to be a mixed bag, too. I got the tick-borne allergy Alpha-Gal the first year we moved here, and have since been desperately trying to keep the wildlife that breeds ticks away. The critters are also very hard on the plants, decimating my annual garden and requiring very expensive fencing to keep the trees, bushes, and vines alive. Our land all slopes to the north and northwest, where the icy winter winds blast from, unfortunately. Plants have to be very cold hardy here to survive (I plan to build a wind breaker for my z6 thornless blackberries). I had similar visions to what you’re saying when we moved here from the depleted, sandy soils of VA, but life had other ideas, heh. It’s still beautiful though, and I’m looking forward to when I beat the problems and turn this land into a utopia.
jcguarneri: Thank you for clearing things up about the black specs! It’s a relief to know that I don’t have to worry about them. I understand the benefits of learning to graft, but please understand that my life is about as full as I can handle, and I’d rather only be able to get a Yates persimmon than have to learn another new skill. It’s just not something I can take on right now.
I coulda swore Lehmans Delight when pollinated by a male (when seeded), was a nicer bright orange and more “solid feeling” vs wrinkley. I would predict if a fruit had seeds last year and was accurate. Although maybe it was a fluke, so will retest this year. Thought only certain asian persimmon were affected by pollination (like astringency, flesh color… don’t follow the PCNA/PCVA threads here as much).
I can definitely appreciate that. I’m not trying to pressure you, and you’ll get no judgement from me. Just wanted to make sure you had an accurate picture of how most if us ended up with these varieties. Ironically, since persimmons are so niche, the most talked about varieties in enthusiast circles may be pretty much unknown to wider audiences, and thus an unproven market that the bigger players don’t want to take a risk on. Other, more readily obtainable varieties will certainly satisfice even if they’re not the hot trend right now.