I was curious what your reply would be regarding height(or depth) of the union as I know you have mentioned burying the graft union deep in the past. I am going to be grafting the rootstock of my previous Nikita’s to JT02 pretty soon. Nikita finally submitted a couple years ago and I now have a good native stock to graft over. I figured I was going to bury it deep after it takes as you had mentioned in the past. Rossyanka gave up the grapes too, it’s just too cold or cold and dry here. JT02 is my last hope.
I don’t have a most successful method. In general I do either whip/tongue or bark graft (on larger stock). I’ve also tried side veneer with success (just to try). Seems like anything works. Timing seems to be the most critical. My grafting typically takes place mid to late May when the rootstocks have leafed out and the night temps are close to 60F. I’ve heard persimmons need warm temps for graft callousing. I wouldn’t want to push it too much later as daytime temps can hit the upper 80s to 90s. I don’t shield my grafts.
My burial depth in the past was just a couple inches or right at ground level. I don’t really recommend that anymore unless you’re just trying to preserve a variety in the case of a hard winter.
Interstem would be interesting to try! There are definitely some varieties that seem to push much later than others. Not sure how much it would change things but it may be worth a try.
I’m going to post a pic with a difference between even side-by-side seedling rootstocks. Too bad there’s no way to clonally propagate persimmon rootstocks except by root sprouts (at least none that I know of).
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Here’s an interesting pic from today. I’ll set this up a bit since it might be confusing. In each space in the persimmon area where we planned to graft we planted two rootstocks (I wasn’t super confident in my grafting abilities) then graft to both with the same variety (Miss Kim I think). Both grafts took, so now we have two trees growing as one, which is what you’ll see in the foreground and background of the picture. One is significantly further along despite being the same cultivar, same approximate size rootstock, same location, etc. Would love to understand this trait or track this tree to determine if its survivability in an even harder winter would be better. Second pic is the grafts themselves (bark graft) so you can see that the rootstocks are approximately the same size.
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Tony, thank you. We purchased some of the trees initially but also grafted many. I’d say at this point it’s 50/50. As some varieties die off we graft on different trees to the rootstock sprouts that come up. It’s moved from a production space to more of a trial space (though I’d certainly like to sell some fruit this year!). In your climate it sounds like burying the graft is a decent insurance policy. We typically only get a couple night per year that dip into the single digits or just slightly below zero.
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I bark or cleft graft low on the American persimmon rootstock like 7 inches in a pot. The following Spring then I bury the whole union 5 inches below the ground level. If the whole top died off then the 5 inch trunk from the union to the ground level wilt re sprout to the same cultivar. My 13 years old Nikita gift kept on dying every couple of years and kept on re sprout.
Tony
We are working on finding rootstock that has the genetics to propagate by cuttings. It exists.
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Hi Tim, I really appreciate your answer with some solid data (temperature) to follow, this helps me a lot to plan the grafting time. I am from Eastern Europe and here persimmons and kaki are just at the beginning, therefore I have followed the topic in US. But, even though I have acquired some valuable information - like the need for the rootstock to leaf out, it was still unclear for me. Also the tip to graft at a higher part of the rootstock make a lot of sense, not only for the resistance but also in the eventuality that the graft didn’t take. It leaves room for grafting in the future.
Regards,
Catalin
FWIW, I’ve done roughly 30 persimmon grafts. For me, temperature seems to matter less than active growth on the rootstock. I’ve done mainly W&T and cleft grafts – both work. Success is roughly 80-85%. For example, last May last year I did roughly 10 field grafts of JT-02 onto IKKJ or Prok. There were 1-2 failures. This spring I did 10 bench grafts of various Asian / American / Hybrid scions onto potted DV rootstock indoors just after the potted rootstock trees had started to leaf out. There were 2 failures. In all cases, failures seem related to either poor quality scions or very thin scions (plus ‘user error’ related to the size of the scions). Basically, I find persimmons a little less forgiving than apples but fairly easy if the rootstock is growing.
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Tony, have you had problems with trunk diseases when doing this? Burying the trunk so much seems to go against all extension recommendations I’ve seen for mulching. Or do you only bury the trunk in the winter?
The 2007 Easter freeze killed everything I was growing, EXCEPT my Asian persimmons, which were grafted high on wild D. v. next to my barn. They had absolutely no damage at all. 2007 was a very odd year. We were seeing 80’s and 90’s from mid February on. Most things were way more advanced than normal, more like late May equivalent. The freeze even killed about 10% of the mature hardwood trees in the area.
My Asian persimmons were the latest things to wake up for me, and did not respond nearly as much to the unusual warmth. However, all of them eventually died over the next 2-4 years due to delayed graft incompatibility. The graft unions swelled and started to ooze sap. Since so many people report kaki being susceptible to late freezes, I now wonder if the graft incompatibility was responsible for the late bud break and resistance to freeze damage? The only graft that was okay was Rosseyanka. If I ever try to grow kaki on D.v. again, I will use use a Rosseyanka interstem.
No trunk disease below ground on my persimmon. “Do you only bury the trunk in the winter?” No. I live in Zone 5 and the temp could drop to Z4 temp at -31F so the graft union stayed below ground all the time.
Tony
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Scott, was your Mazugata PVNA? Mine is flowering for the first time this year, and I want to try hand pollinating some fruit to see.
It was astringent until bletted. It is either PVA or PCA but I always had a pollinator (fruit were always full of seeds) so I don’t know which.
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We topworked an American persimmon seedling that was 3 years old with Saijo 5 feet above the ground. We only had 1 bad winter spell and the grafts have died, so high grafting WV z6a didnt help keep Saijo alive for us.
Rearranged to worst case scenario, 1 is more hardy, 2 is likely to die
| 1 | 100-46 - No damage |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cheong Pyong - No damage |
| 1 | David’s Kandy - No damage |
| 1 | Dollywood - No damage |
| 1 | Early Jiro (new plant) - Tip dieback |
| 1 | Giboshi (new graft, KHG) - Tip damage |
| 1 | Hachiya - No damage, on lotus |
| 1 | Ichi Ki Kei Jiro (whole row) - No damage to tip damage, some branch damage, all are low or buried grafts |
| 1 | Il Jae Mok Cha Rang Tam Kam - No damage |
| 1 | Inchon - No damage |
| 1 | Jin Yong Tam Kam - No damage |
| 1 | Journey - No damage |
| 1 | Kasandra - No damage |
| 1 | Kyung San Ban Si - No damage |
| 1 | Maxum - No damage |
| 1 | Mikkusu (JT-02) - No damage |
| 1 | Miss Kim - No damage |
| 1 | Mt Goverla - No damage |
| 1 | Mt Roman Kosh - No damage, last cultivar to push out |
| 1 | NB-02 - No damage |
| 1 | Nikita’s Gift - No damage |
| 1 | Rosseyanka - No damage |
| 1 | Steiermark - Minor tip damage, young plant |
| 1 | WS8-10 (Barbra’s Blush) - No damage |
| 2 | Fuyu - Essentially dead to ground |
| 2 | Chibacha - Dead to graft, new graft |
| 2 | Chocolate - Branch damage, though some fruit buds seem to have survived close to the building |
| 2 | Chuchupaka - Dead to graft |
| 2 | Fire Crystal - Dead to ground |
| 2 | Gil Ya - Branch damage, in a very sheltered location |
| 2 | Great Wall - Tip damage, minimal |
| 2 | Great Wall (this plant has always struggled, low graft) - Dead to ground |
| 2 | Gwang Yang - Dead to ground |
| 2 | Hao River - Dead to ground |
| 2 | Hira Tanenashi - Major branch dieback |
| 2 | Jiro (whole row) - Highly variable, mostly dead to ground, low/buried grafts |
| 2 | Korea - Branch damage, low graft |
| 2 | Maekawa Jiro - Dead to ground |
| 2 | NB-21 (Sestronka) - Branch damage |
| 2 | Picudo (new plant) - Dead to ground |
| 2 | Saijo - Low grafts are dead to ground except high on the hill. KHG have no damage and leaf out much later. |
| 2 | Sheng - Branch damage, some branches may still fruit |
| 2 | Sung Hui - Major branch dieback |
| 2 | Tae Bong Si - Tip damage, branch damage, most damage occurred to exposed branches, some fruit may still form on protected wood |
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This is great data. Let me try to extract some general take-aways:
- American varieties all did fine.
- Hybrids generally did well except for Chuchupaka, Sestronka (any others?).
- Kaki’s were very mixed:
a. PVNAs: Giboshi did well but Chocolate not.
b. PCAs: Hachiya, Kyung San Ban Si, Miss Kim did well, others not (I’m not familiar with all the names).
c. PCNAs: IKKJ, Early Jiro, the Tam Kams did well, others not.
If a grower is focused on what works, what other names would you highlight?
Any huge surprises?
Thanks.
My simple analysis and your further grouping corresponds well with what survives in our WV z6b area. Kakis going to be treated like figs from now on in pots, hybrids and Americans out in the wild in ground. Thanks for the next level analysis! Now we just need a graph 
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@WVMJack
Good report. !
Thanks !
What was your lowest temperatures ?
And any late freeze events you could attribute damage from ?