Except @ctduckhunter says his is leafing out after a -17F this winter. I’ve also seen at least one Sloviakian seller listing it as hardy to -13F. How that plays out to true zone hardiness will have to be sorted out over time. I expect it would have trouble with an extended period of -13 lows, but I don’t know. JT-02 is clearly the safest bet in the meantime.
https://www.shop.zahradnictvolimbach.sk/en/persimmon-tree-gora-goverla
Sellers often tend to exaggerate the hardiness to increase the sales…I trust the growers in Ukraine who reported frost damage at - 22°C.
Yeah I agree, and so many other conditions play a part. But yeah since I have read of NG getting heavy damage around -11 to -13F i read from growers over there that Goras tended to be a bit less hardy, so i was sort of assuming -8 to -12 max but yeah -22c would be -7.6F that sounds right to me unless one gora type surprises us with as much hardiness as NG or well more hardiness is a slim possibility if a throwback gene is passed to one of the gora types. One nursery over there does list them all as -25c and NG as -26c but that might not be reliable data. Testing will be interesting! Thanks for your feedback. For now we will assume zobe 7a with somewhere between -6 to -13F max hardiness with top damage likely below -6F or so. But hopefully time will have better results. I am protecting all of my hybrids below 5F and jaki below 10F with at least a sheet for blocking windchill for the first 3 years. One thing someone in Ukraine shared is that Pamjat Pasenkova is hardier than any Gora or even NG so that puts it in the -13 or perhaps -16F range! 
Pamjat Pasenkova is supposed to be a mutation of either Rosseyanka, in which case it would be hardier than Nikita, or a mutation of Nikita itself …and that would mean about the same hardiness. I personally don’t grow it so cannot serve with exact data.
I will hopefully know something on my Sosnovskaya, Pamjat Pasenkova, Gora Roman Kosh, Gora Rogers, Kassandra, JT-02 in the next few weeks. Things grew like crazy yesterday with a high close to 90. I picked around 5 lbs of asparagus yesterday morning and probably 20 lbs this morning. I will check in on my persimmons this evening.
I am so excited @ctduckhunter !!! I know cold hardiness can vary from year to year, so many variables.
For instance look at what EL says about Hira Tanenashi, and I would never rate it on average to less than -5F yet the say it took -40 under certain conditions wow how much better are the hybrids under the same conditions… (Yet the midwest has greater fluxuations than the east coast EL mentions).
I’m not @Hillbillyhort but my Sheng tree is typically my last kaki to leaf out in the spring. Most leaf out at about the same time, but there are a few that have come out of dormancy earlier than the others (Sung Hui and Fire Crystal, for example). For me in Zone 7B where late frosts are the norm, leafing out too early is a bigger issue than the ability to survive subzero temps when fully dormant in the middle of winter.
Good point! And it is good to hear your report about Sheng. Hopefully when we hear of one leafing later than others we can test it more in our various locations and see if it is a scion trait, perhaps help others with great tips !
Sosnovskaya, Chuchupaka, jT-02, pamjat pasenkova all breaking buds. Still waiting on Rosseyanka, Kassandra, Gora Rogers, and Gora Roman Kosh.
One of my Saijo trees, Kyungsan Ban Si, and Il Mok Jae Cha Ryang are only swelling their buds now. I have another Saijo tree that swelled its buds at the beginning of the month (it was early to bud out last year too) so there’s some variability. Everything else has started showing leaves in my yard. Some are already showing flower buds too.
Yeah, I’m sure microclimates and other factors play into when kakis break dormancy. I don’t currently grow any of those three you mentioned. I used to have Saijo, and I didn’t notice it being any later than my other trees to leaf out. It’s usually the early ones that grab my attention and make me anxious as I watch the weather forecast!
I’m in NYC zone 7b. My 3 yr old potted IKKJ that I kept in my unheated garage over the winter started breaking dormancy about 3 weeks ago. I left it in there for another week before moving it outdoors. Not at the flowering stage yet.
On a sub-topic here, what about GDD for ripening? I’m sharing some Prok persimmon with a friend in Downeast Maine, and they only get about 1,800 GDD. She’s unable to ripen the seedling persimmons she has growing, but will Prok’s earliness be enough to squeak by? My impression seems to be that somewhere around 2,000 GDD is the magic number.
Prok and the rest of the American persimmon D.V will ripen well on the counter as long as they turned light yellow.
Her seedling trees never get past green. I’ve told her it still may be a long shot, but more info is good.
While I am in zone 8B (might be reclassified to 9A) we get only around 2400 GDD units each year.
H-118 starts ripening late Sept here and continues into the end of October. I imagine Prok will be similar. End of Sept we might be around the 1800 GDD mark.
Nikita’s gift starts ripening around late October and goes into mid November.
H63A has flower buds and I might have more information end of the season.
Prok ,here in WV, usually ripen in late August into early September.
Being completely gone by the time the wild ones ripen late October .
That’s promising. So there’s hope, at least.
