PS you may want to get Buzz info from Perfect Circle Farm, he’s in zone 4 and might have good info what ripens up there and he’s working on his own seedlings/hyrbrids to gage what survives and ripens. He had some new ones listed last year, but dont have too much info on them (like Autumn Apricot, Buzz’s Favorite, etc)
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@Buzzferver are you still around here?
Can you maybe confirm add onto the list of possible zone 4 or 5 persimmon?
This is the list so far from what i see above:
- Barbara’s Blush | early or mid-season ripening, maybe mid? zone 4 and/or 5 confirmed?
- Deer Magnet
- Dollywood
- Early Golden
- Garretson
- Geneva Long
- Geneva Red
- H118 Early Jewel (aka Prairie Star i read?)
- H120 Claypool
- H63A
- J-59
- Jennys Early
- Meader
- Mohler
- Morris Burton
- NC-10
- Osage | early or mid-season ripening, maybe mid?
- Pieper
- Prairie Dawn H55A
- Prairie Sun A33
- Prok
- BlueHill varities like Tin-cup / Full Draw
- Valeene Beauty I94
- Yates/Juhl
- Journey hybrid
- Mikkusu JT-02 (maybe earliest hybrid that can ripen? how about Chuchupaka, the real Dar S? any other zone 5 possibilities? zone 4 seems maybe very iffy)
That GoogleForm/Sheets persimmon spreadsheet that someone tried to do here was nice, but doesn’t list any zone responses < zone 6 unfortunately.
He keeps the names shown on his website even when they are sold out (told me in email).
I see some I have overlooked like Kasandra, F-26, L-93, but I’m not sure which have a good chance of completing edible fruit in Zone 4b. He has Rosseyanka but I think it harvests last week of October which in Minneapolis only works in rare years like 2024. It snowed 12" on Oct 21 in 2020.
Before this thread I had overlooked Campbell NC10 due to lack of reviews or suppliers. Its origin is actually sheltered in winter to Zone 6 but it’s at a northern latitude so the ripening time could work.
Here’s Kasandra ripening on October 6 in mid Tennessee, but their growing season starts like 21 days earlier than Minneapolis:
Minneapolis growing season starts May 10:
https://weatherspark.com/y/10405/Average-Weather-in-Minneapolis-Minnesota-United-States-Year-Round
Nashville starts April 19:
https://weatherspark.com/y/14687/Average-Weather-in-Nashville-Tennessee-United-States-Year-Round
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Yeh but i think that list of grafted varieties is much smaller than the scionwood he offers. Like i don’t see Autumn Apricot there.
I own property that is situated on the border of 4b/5a in northern lower Michigan. I should probably note that it is in a great lake snow belt zone so it does get an insulating blanket of deep snow every winter. I planted common persimmon as an experiment a few years ago that grow slowly but have not winter killed. I suppose the fruit will probably not fully ripen? Ryan Haines owner/manager of Blue Hill Wildlife Nursery gave me a few “Hoosier” persimmon trees (not yet available) to try in spring of 2025. His website indicates: “Deer Luscious™ and Full Draw™ persimmon trees are both very cold hardy northern American persimmon trees.” I’ll be planting a couple of each soon. I’d recommend sending an email query to Ryan (mailto:ryan@bluehillwildlifenursery.com). He is the most experienced and knowledgeable source I have come across.
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i got a deer luscous and tin cup coming from him this spring. ill post how they do. my 1, started in ground, persimmon has survived 2 winters with no damage and is already near 4ft. i was really suprised it grew as fast as it did from what ive read other northern growers were saying. maybe because i started it in the raised bed instead of transplanting it from a pot.
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Just FYI, I made some corrections to my post:
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- Buzz Ferver
- Perfect Circle Farm
- 1170 Airport Rd
- Berlin Vt 05641
- [buzzferver@gmail](mailto:buzzferver@gmail
- 802-522-2312
- 4.5.24, BRIEFLY UPDATED IN CAPS 12/7/25
Persimmon Zone 4b Hardiness Project -
Introduction-
I first tasted American persimmons when I was young, they were wild and growing somewhere on the Delmarva peninsula. They were fully formed, but still on the tree- and not ripe…They were very astringent. I tasted some that were OK over the years, Asian persimmons mostly. I didn’t get to taste them a really great American until 2015 - 40 years later. I was at John Hershey’s Farm in Downingtown PA. I was floored at how fabulous they were. I was hooked big time, I started studying the history and culture of them at that point. Since then I have traveled far and met as many folks as possible with persimmon orchards. Trying to understand the flavors and qualities of these great American persimmons.
One thing that became quite clear is that no one has ever embarked on a systematic study of American persimmon hardiness in zone 4. Based on my love of this fruit and plant , I embarked on a project to extend the range of the persimmon further north.
The very common comment I encountered was “American persimmon cultivars are not reliable producers or even hardy in zone 4”. But, study and exploring has shown that this might not always be the case…
Very little work has been done thus far on extending the range of persimmons. Of note is the work of Elwyn Meader (saveseedsDOTorg/biography/meader/indexDOThtml), Professor of Horticulture at University of New Hampshire. He made one planting of 200 persimmon seeds from the cultivar ‘Garretson’, a seedling of ‘Early Golden’ (more on Early Golden later). From this planting he selected ‘New Hampshire #1’ , now known as ‘Meader’, which was introduced in 1973.
Project Outline-
I am in year 7 of a ten+ year research project to find hardier cultivars that produce fruit of high quality in Zone 4, and super hardy males for breeding to existing cultivars.
To this end, over 35,000+ cultivar seedlings have been be evaluated 3 or more winters in the ground for hardiness. Another 20,000 have seen 2 or 1 winter. The winter of 23-24 does not count as a test winter
Over the course of the past 8 seasons , I have collected seed from cultivars produced and growing in the best orchards in the US. Seed has been collected from from the orchards of Jerry Lehman, Don Compton, John Gordon, John Hershey, Jim Claypool, Cliff England, Bob Seip, University of Vermont, and many others. The majority of the collections are kept separated by named cultivar or improved mother trees. These trees are now 1-8 year old seedlings.
The major goal of the project is to select seedlings that show little-to-no early frost damage or winter dieback. Of course the second goal is to have hardy females and use pollen from the hardiest males to make even more hardy cultivars.
What I am discovering so far is the hardiness to -25F seems to be in most of these seedlings trees root systems. A major limiting factor seems to be the early fall hard frosts and freezing temperatures. These early freezing in mid to late September kills the new growth before it can harden off. The trees are still actively growing at the end of the fall flush of growth. Temps as low as 19F at the third week of September is what damages the growing tops ( or kills them to the graft). Plants that experience no hard freezes into mid October seem fine. It seems if the wood had enough time to fully ripen they survive with little to no damage. However, and the exciting part is, there are a few trees that show little to no damage after 19 degrees in September! The foliage is green and alive while all their neighbors foliage are frost-burned and turn black. Some of these show little to no damage when followed by -25F in winter proper.
Initial findings are about 1% of the seedlings are resistant to these early freezes. 11 plants out of the first 1000 seeds collected in 2017 were lined out for further observation. Most of these are alive , but not necessarily prospering, a few are doing doing better than the rest. Since then I have selected another 100 or so for lining out. Out of the 35,000 grown through the 3 year evaluation period, only ONE has shown no frost/winter damage. I am hopeful this plant will be a male FOR FURTHERING MY BREEDING PROJECT!
UPDATE 2025 -HE IS A MALE-‘HARDY ROCKSTAR’, AND HAS PROVEN TO BE A GOOD POLLINIZER FOR MY FRUITING POTTED GRAFTS AND (NOW IN 2025) MY 3 PRODUCING FEMLES. ONLY ONE OF THE 3 IS SUPERIOR ENOUGH TO BE VERY EXCITED ABOUT.
INTERIM OBSERVATIONS SHOW THAT NATURAL HARDINESS IS QUITE RANDOMLY SCATTERED THROUGH THE SELECTED CULTIVARS, WITH ‘HESS’ AND ‘BURHMAN’ BEING THE ONLY TWO SELECTIONS THAT HAVE YIELDED A HIGHER % OF HARDY SEEDLINGS. SADLY WE HAVE NOT HAD A -25F TEST WINTER FOR THE PAST 3 YEARS, SO THE SEEDLINGS IN EVALUATION HAVE LESS MEANINGFUL DATA FROM MY PERSPECTIVE, HOWEVER, -15F TEMPS IN 24/25 WINTER HAS DAMEGED MANY OF THE PLANTS ENOUGH TO REMOVE LARGE NUMBERS FROM EVALUATION.
I anticipate finding at least SEVERAL more with thorough hardiness out of the 20,000+ still in evaluation, and another 25-50 with superior hardiness, ENOUGH TO PRODUCE FRUIT AND POLLEN RELIABLY IN MOST YEARS.
It WILL take an additional 2-5 years to grow these trees to flowering and hopefully fruiting. THE BREEDING OF THE HARDY MALE WITH MY FRUITING FEMALES WILL BE ANOTHER 7-10 YEARS.
If more than ½ will be male, of the females, how many will have decent fruit? Hopefully a reasonable %…STILL AN OPEN QUESTION.
DESPITE VERY CAREFUL TAGGING OF SEED SOURCES, THE BLOCK WITH THE HIGHEST CONCENTRATION OF HARDY PLANTS CAME FROM A LOT SENT TO ME FROM DONALD COMPTON MARKED “WILL MAKE GOOD ROOTSTOCK”
GOING FORWARD, clients AND ASSOCIATES must be found to continue to grow clones in a parallel test planting also in zone 4. In the perfect world, I would start having scion wood for hardiness experimenters in 2027.
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There ia an app that will show you the projected sun path at different times of the year with your phone camera. Much better than looking at the moon for hours and will be more accurate. I used it when deciding where to plant in my yard.
It is free and very easy to use.
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I’ve grown Szukis and Mohler here in NY Hudson Valley for almost 40 years and both have borne delectable fruits reliably except for one season of cloudy, cool, and rainy weather, when fruit didn’t ripen. Winter temperatures here occasionally drop below -25° F. I also grew Meader, but it retained to much astringency. Juhl was also good, but not as good as Szukis and Mohler. I’ve never seen a male flower onn Szukis. Then again, my persimmons often have seeds.
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ShadeMap - Simulate sun shadows for any time and place on Earth this also a nice app. you can add your own trees and such if anythings missing and play with where the shadows are.
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Buzz, im up in n. Maine on the Canadian border about 60mi. east of Allagash. a little more north. we were at z3b up until last year and now are at 4b. 200 yards downhill of me on the st. john river is z3a. i have 1 seedling out of 3 that has grown and survived 2 winters. like you, we havent seen a test winter in awhile but the year before i planted this tree we got 2 -40 nights. this tree has seen -25 for 2 winters with no damage and we received a low amount of snowfall in both those winters. so bad that on the 1st year it grew, they couldnt open the snowmobile trails until mid feb. because of lack of snow. that should have insured the death of this seedling but it came through it unscathed. id be willing to send you wood off this tree or trial some seeds up here for you if you like.
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I am in SW Wisconsin, 4b/5a. Viroqua area. I have Szukis and Early Jewel grafted, also some seedlings. The limiting factor here is not only cold hardiness but ripening time. The Early Jewel had some ripe fruits this year that were sweet, although a handful of fruits failed to lose astringency. Ripe here around Oct. first. The Szukis never fully ripens (also mostly just makes male flowers). The persimmon that has done the best for me is a rootstock sprout from a failed graft from Nolin R. Nursery, has small, tasty fruit, a hair earlier than Early Jewel. I lost a seven foot tall Meader in the polar vortex of 2014 which had not yet fruited. All my current trees were planted since. I do have a number of seedlings from N. MO that should fruit soon. Also, I know of a mature persimmon tree a few miles away 30 years old or so, but it is a male. I look forward to the results of the Savanna institute’s big cold hardiness trials that are ongoing.
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Woo Wisconsin! lol
I’ve also considered and looked for some hardy persimmon varieties, not super sure because I already have QUITE a collection of young plants already, but will keep this on the backburner. Maybe I’ll buy a couple more medlar trees instead xD
Can you give reviews of your Medlar fruit, comparing cultivars? It’s a big worry for me that so far only Nottingham and Macrocarpa have recent reviews. I own neither nor can I purchase them under those names.
I only planted them earlier this year, not much info to give for now but I got 2 of the royal variety… not even sure exactly where I got them from now O_o
But I’ll let you know how it goes 
I would likely recommend the royal ones too just because that was the type I settled on because of it’s ability to grow in small areas.
‘Hardy Golden’
Buzz, it’s good to see you here! ccing @tonyOmahaz5 too.