Just planted them this afternoon actually! 20th century up against our barn, Mazugata out in the field. Will let you know how they do.
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Prairie Dawn (H55A) was my favorite tasting American persimmon last year. I’ve tried fairly few, so certainly that that with a grain of salt, but I’ve heard of similar results from others. It just has a different sort of flavor and ripens pretty early from what I remember.
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20th century could be a good one for you, it survived 50 years at the Wye plantation in eastern Maryland and it is one of the latest to leaf out. It is just starting to pop buds now for me whereas all the other Asians have some full leaves.
I grew Mazugata for 10-15 years, it was great until it died one winter. I had it on virginiana.
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H 55 A is Prairie Dawn. Cliff England doesn’t think much of its Taste. Who else has tasted it?
Thanks for reporting your observations. I’ve been growing Great wall for 3 years on a southern slope protected behind my house. No damage so far just outside of Louisville Kentucky, but we rarely get below zero anymore and then it might be for one or two nights. Our winters are a far cry from the Ohio river freeze over of the 70s and the heavy snow’s of the 90s.
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@jrd51 You’re quite right, sorry! I did a similar post back a while ago to match up names. I’ll modify my original post because I really don’t like naming confusion!
I really liked Prairie Dawn (H55A) compared to some others I’ve had. Smaller than some of the largest but had a different sort of flavor to it and was seedless.
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Great to know, thanks! The graft on this one is pretty high and I planted it in a protected spot, so hopefully it’ll like it. The late leafing out is a major bonus.
Off topic . . . @timclymer - I bought a bunch of scion wood from you. I’ve grafted some of it (e.g., Sheng, Saiyo) to potted DV rootstock started indoors under LEDs in early March. Grafts are doing very well. I had to stake one Sheng today because it was getting so tall.
Maybe in 4-5 years, I’ll have a hardiness report of my own. 
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Tim, I’m sorry to hear of your losses even though these are very useful observations. Mine fared pretty well this past winter with no injuries (8 degrees or maybe a little lower a couple nights), but spring frost did nip 1 tree. Do you think some of them could have experienced a late flush of growth that didn’t harden off in time before winter? I had that happen before, and winter injury was evident on those trees.
I’m glad to see some kaki are showing good cold tolerance such as Kyung San ban Si, Miss Kim, Inchon, and many of the Saijo. I also think it’s interesting how some Jiros like Maekawa and Ichi are showing less damage than plain Jiro.
That’s an interesting observation about the higher grafts surviving better, and leafing out later. Now that you mention it, my 20th Century, Il Mok Jae Cha Ryang, and Cheong Pyong leafed out the latest, and are grafted near waist height. I got lucky there, because that’s where I managed to match the scion with the rootstock. The ones I have planted in spots that receive some spring shade definitely budded out later too. I have a Prok that buds out very early though even compared to the kaki. Maybe that tree is just a weird one.
As a side note, my Cheong Pyong is showing many male flowers in addition to females, and will be a useful pollinator. I think @Harbin told me about this one a few years back.
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My Prok too leaved out the earliest. Other trees that I have are IKK Jiro, Tam Kam and Mikkuso.
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My Prok leafs out earlier than my others as well and this has turned out to be quite a detriment in 2 of the last 3 years as it has been the only one of my 4 larger persimmons (prok, yates, rosseyanka, nikitas gift) that been damaged by late freezes.
In 2020 it had total bud kill and died back quite a bit and got attacked by ambrosia beetles, though it did bounce back in summer. It fruited for the first time last year and I got about a dozen ripe fruit after it had dropped over 50 through the summer. This year it had near total bud kill from the last freeze, with a few branches having undamaged terminal buds. I sprayed to hopefully ward off another ambrosia attack.
Prok had large, swollen green buds that were just starting to separate to form leaves. Yates had green, moderately swollen buds but was not harmed at all. Rosseyanka had green buds that were just starting to push and was undamaged. Nikita’s Gift still had completely dormant buds that are just starting to push now.
I love the vigorous and healthy nature of my Prok tree, but the early growth and susceptibility to freeze damage has me rather disappointed at the moment.
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I remember a POMONA article from a NAFEX member in Red Lion PA who’d had Sheng growing and fruiting there for over 20 years, with minimal to no winter damage.
Easter freeze event in 2007 killed all my Asian persimmons, and Carpathian walnut grafts… 4 nights of temps into the teens, with most plants already having 6-10 inches of tender new growth was devastating. Nuked a bunch of grafts I’d made that were already starting to push growth. Killed 10-yr old Japanese walnut seedlings outright.
I had Great Wall grafted about 8 ft up in a D.v. tree, and doing well, but that 2007 freeze took it out.
But, it also killed back main branches the size of my thigh on some oaks & hickories in my woods… many of which declined and died over the next few years.
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@Lucky_P – I found your post very interesting, but it provokes questions. You are in Z6 KY. Easter 2007 was April 8. You seem to be saying that your persimmons had 8-10" of growth by that date. I’m in Z6B RI. It’s May 7 and my persimmons are barely breaking bud.
Do you normally have that much growth by that date? I realize that Z6 is not the same everywhere – southern locations warm up faster. But is it typically that much faster? If so, aren’t you perennially at risk of a late freeze?
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2007 was a ‘different’ year.
As best I can recall, we’d had runs of days with temps into the 80s, as far back as late Feb. Budbreak was much earlier than usual.
Things are much later here this year…as in your locality, persimmons are just now leafing out, some late-vegetating BWs still haven’t broken bud.
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@Lucky_P – Thanks. Your story just shows that temperature volatility is the real enemy. 80’s followed by 20’s would kill just about anything.
I think Cliff England said it best: “It’s not necessarily HOW cold it gets, but WHEN it gets cold!”
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I need to check my Nikita’s Gift, I didn’t see any buds waking up the last time I checked a few days ago.
@timclymer After these initial trials, have you considered finding out which of your varieties are hardy enough not to die back under normal circumstances and also leaf out latest and using those as an interstem? That is my main takeaway to this point in the thread. Thank you for taking such great notes as well as sharing your findings.
I’ve not done it extensively, but ‘piece-root’ grafting used to be a common practice, particularly for apples. I don’t know how - if at all - that would differ from just grafting persimmons as low as is possible on seedling rootstock and planting with union below grade…
I’ve done several mulberry grafts on pieces of root that had exited drainholes in pots between the time seedlings went into them last spring and I pulled them out to graft this spring. Several are leafing out, so I have some hopes that it’s going to work fine… I’m sort of short on mulberry rootstocks at the moment, so the vigorous roots were a welcome addition.
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Hi, could you be so kind and let me know the most successful grafting method? I am about to graft next week-end and I don’t know which method to use. Even though I have successfully grafted pear, apple, cherry and plums/peach, Asian pear for kaki is the first time.