Just thought of this today, might be useful to you Jesse. John Gordon’s book on nuts and some fruits, there is a section on persimmons and the challenges of growing them further north: http://johnsankey.ca/songnews/nutgrowing.html#M
Here is an excerpt on varieties that have worked:
"Several native persimmons matured their fruit locally, even during recent short cool seasons.
Pieper persimmon produces ripe fruit even though it overbears and should be thinned. It is
worrying to see Pieper going into winter loaded with ripening fruit. Such treatment is known to
kill persimmons, but Pieper returns to bloom with no sign of winter injury. Its foliage becomes
ornamentally yellow in October before frost. A seedling of Pieper, SAA Pieper, may be an
improvement on Pieper because of earlier ripening and larger (blue plum) size fruit. Slate is the
equal of SAA Pieper.
Richards from Indiana, and Meader from New Hampshire
remain mysteries to us. The description which came with them said they were extra early
ripening and high quality. Richards has only ripened once, Richards ripened as early as any in the
long hot summer of 1991 but proved to be too soft. It was good eaten off the tree in early
September, but would not store except as mush, Meader has never ripened except in a poor
freeze dry form.
Yates is a winner. It is from the hills of southern Indiana. It ripens large, Japanese-plum-size
fruit, sometimes in mid September. When seemingly ripe, Yates is fully ripe without astringency.
The latent astringency has been a fault of NC-10 persimmon. However, in exceptional 1991
NC-10 started ripening in August completely free of astringency. Geneva Pumpkin (the Geneva
selections were bred by Prof. George Slate) is also very early. NC-10, Yates, and Hess have the
best foliage. It is a lustrous, leathery, dark green from early June until October. Other selections
have lighter green foliage which is often marked with black streaking. Hess has a long fruit, large
like Yates, identical to Geneva Long, but too late ripening most yearn.
Geneva Long is
unusual because its fruit looks and tastes like oriental persimmon. Even green, Geneva Long has
a bland, not-too- astringent fruit. The whole plant seems to invite eating because aphids and leaf
hoppers love it. It is mid October ripening. The fruit retains texture so it can be sectioned like a
tomato to be put in a salad or desert. Geneva Long’s atypical lack of astringency may be why it
fails to reach the semi-apricot flavour of the other natives.
Szukis (pronounced Sue kiss) is a
bi-sexual persimmon which yields pollen and fruit. It is early ripe like Yates, over productive like
Pieper, and its fruit size ranges from small like Pieper and NC- 10 to almost the size of Yates.
Because you need one male tree to produce good persimmons (seeded fruit are higher quality),
Szukis satisfies that need plus produces good fruit. All other persimmon trees (except oriental)
are typically totally male, producing pollen, or totally female, producing fruit.
Seedless persimmons mature before persimmon fruit with seeds. Because they often have
poor flavour it is easy to think of them as degrading rather than truly ripening. Pieper and NC-10
often produce seedless fruit. Persimmons with one or two seeds will ripen before persimmons
with five or six seeds. Seedless
persimmons are smaller than the same variety’s fruit with seeds.
Early ripening persimmons
bloom early. Farther south any male tree will pollinate an orchard. We need male trees with extra
early bloom to get bees gathering persimmon nectar before the females come into bloom or we
lose the earliest part of our crop."