Worried about the roots freezing in the pot in winter?
or do you protect against that (or not needed?)?
I always assumed that freezing ground would not damage roots. Why? Well, in a normal Z6 winter, air temps get down to 0 to -5 F. At those temps, the ground freezes from a few inches to a foot or more deep. The trees don’t care.
But those are trees adapted to temperate climates. I’ve grown potted figs for 14 years. Making a bold act of faith, I’ve always stored the pots in an unheated garage that often gets below freezing. So of course, the rootballs would freeze solid. It never mattered.
I started growing persimmons in pots 3-4 years ago. I store the persimmons, which I take to be tougher than figs, in the same unheated, uninsulated garage. I’ve measured temperatures inside the garage as low as 17 F, so the rootballs have certainly frozen. There’s been no damage.
My operating assumption is that if there is an air temperature that the trunk and scaffolds can tolerate, then the same ground temperature would be OK for the roots.
4 Likes
The warmer weather in Omaha Z5b from December to the first week of January with the temperature in the 60s at times has fooled all my potted kakis in my garage to wake up. Now I have to use LED lights to keep them happy until Spring. Ugh 
.
Tony
6 Likes
Yikes!
Thankfully, it almost never gets that warm in the winter here and never for more than a couple days.
1 Like
After 3 days of LED lights on 24 /7, the young low lights kakis leaves are now turning green. I guessed they are happy now.
Tony
Kakis
Figs
5 Likes
If theoretically you let the cold just kill off the early green kaki growth, with the tree still survive and put out new green growth in the spring… or it wasted all its stored energy putting out the green growth now and therefore would most likely die?
1 Like
They probably will live by doing that but all the new non lignify stems will died so there will be no fruits because they only flowers on new growth. I won’t take that chance because I want to cross them this summer to make new hybrids.
Tony
3 Likes
This will be the first year that my asian persimmons will experience prolonged (about a week) negative temps. Lets see how cold hardy they really are.
1 Like
What cultivars, and how cold are you expecting? Good luck!
I’m planning to graft a couple kaki that are reported to be more cold tolerant than average kaki in z6a. I don’t expect them to survive long term, but it might be fun for a year or two if we have mild winters. Inchon and Shan Xi.
I’ve about eight first-year or second-year grafts of various hybrid cultivars that were hit by -18F yesterday. We’ll see how that turns out…
I’ve got a bunch of different varieties (astringent and non). They range from a couple years old to well over ten. Most of them have seen lots of near zero temps without issue, but this next week is going to be zero to minus five for the entire week. That’s a first and I’m interested in how they do.
1 Like
P.S. BrambleBerry Farms started scionwood sales today.
2 Likes
I was making this tool (with 99.9% AI help) to parse @Richard’s Persimmon Ancestry Excel file, to make some fluid/dynamic tool for others to view in a fun way.
Just used AI to make it last night for my persimmon presentation …
https://arianhojat.com/random_stuff/persimmon-ancestry.html
I also have a version on Claude.ai, but it doesn’t have some extra features I added, like ability to upload your own file (as it said you can only have a certain amount of space on their ‘online artifacts’ so i had to put it on my website). But i’ll link a more legit-looking/famous/popular website if people don’t want to click my link:
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/10bff26c-b353-46ab-840b-a881c141f22b
You can even upload your own .csv file (aka “comma separated values”, a simpler type of file that Excel can open+export). Here is a sample file to upload (i removed some extra columns from the original file as I wanted the program to not deal with any other columns that might have unusual characters and focus only on whats needed).
Here is a sample file (can’t upload .csv files here for some reason, they are safer than .xsl files 
). I removed some of Cliff’s non-named varieties to make it a bit cleaner looking.
If anyone has any corrections/updates, or dead varieties i should remove let me know
https://arianhojat.com/random_stuff/Copy%20of%20U.S.%20Hybrid%20persimmons%20list%20-%20Simplified.csv
I just thought others would enjoy. It prob won’t be accurate if the variety it crossed with is unknown and not labeled in the Excel (as some varieties are not known what they crossed with i think).
If afraid to click on links, this is what it looks like):
10 Likes
That’s such a cool visualization! Thanks for sharing.
3 Likes
Is Prok astringent? I saw a post somewhere that says it was not. I think it is astringent.
Yes it is astringent. Large fruit with mild flavor. Once it drops to the ground and soft then time to eat it.
1 Like
Very cool!
1 Like
I see that Kentucky has some seedling persimmons available again. Has anyone bought those and are they graftable size? About the size of Missouri?
I have Prok (along with 100-46) and when it drops to the ground, i thought its not astringent when i eat them, but Im in zone 7a/b Philly. I wonder if its only a zone5 thing where it drops astringent? I’ll try and pay attention to future fruits (as I get way more of 100-46 since its in a sunnier location and don’t pay attention to my Prok fruits as much).
In year 2 my Prok set some fruit but dropped it all by July.
In year 3… It did not bloom. Nor did my JT02.
Hopefully this comming season year 4 for Prok and JT02… they bloom and set fruit and holds some fruit to ripen.
This will be year 3 for my Journey… but it is smaller than most of my other year 3 trees. It seems to be more of a slow grower, and spreads out instead of shooting up.
Not sure if it will fruit this year or not. Can’t wait to try them.
TNHunter
1 Like
Is it a weather thing? Almost all of my American trees bloomed but failed to set fruit this past year. Meanwhile the Asians and hybrids did great. FWIW my JT-02 hasn’t failed to bloom in 4-5 years, but one year it dropped nearly all the fruit.
1 Like