You and I have the same “Prok”
Early dropping, no astringency.
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looks just like mine. pretty distinctive fruit. my two Prok trees are genetically identical but there are noteworthy differences in the fruit from each. They are about 150 ft from each other. There are site differences that could account for this. Rootstock effects would be the other likely explanation.
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One thing I remember from my research on that a very long time ago was that the male was just as important as the female in fruit quality. That’s why I bought Szukis scions from John Gordon in upstate NY many years ago. It was highly rated as a male that would impart good flavor.
John S
PDX OR
I went to the fancy grocery store in my neighborhood to buy prestige varieties of apples that I’d never tried before. They were uninspiring. I noticed that the apples that I grew carefully, paying attention to soil and orchard practices and picked only when ripe, tasted much better than any of them. I agree with you that a really good apple or persimmon is more impressive on a rating scale than a disappointing one, for that reason. It’s a better measure of what it could be.
John S
PDX OR
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Anyone know anything about golden supreme mentioned here as a very old variety? We may want to download and attach the document if we have not already somewhere. The information is quickly dissappearing.
@parkwaydrive did mention it earlier. We have very basic information at this time. He does have one fruiting.
Interesting. I’ve wondered if the male pollinator makes a difference in the quality of Asian PVNA varieties, which are generally seeded to reduce astringency.
I don’t have any male Americans here (except possibly root suckers from seedling rootstock) and I don’t want seeds, so I’m just gonna have to live with the flavor of the unseeded fruits. It’s bad enough that my new PVNAs are producing seeds in Kassandra.
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Golden Supreme is a later season cultivar. From what I’ve read, it appeared in the grower discourse around the 1950s, putting it in the second wave of legacy cultivars. At my place, it’s similar to Ruby and Miller in fruit characteristics. Ripening order here in central Indiana is Ruby, Miller, and then Golden Supreme. They all make nice fruit, though. Ruby and Early Golden are the ones I look forward to for fresh eating. Unfortunately, there are two Ruby cultivars. This is the big Ruby, not the little Ruby mentioned in the old literature.
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when does (big) Ruby ripen at your place?
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There are a couple golden supreme in dawe’s arboretum.
Nice fruit to my taste. Nice texture, color and relatively low seed count. They also have a early golden that has nice fruit.
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Late September through most of October. I like its extended ripening period; pick a handful every day before work to snack on during my commute during that time. It’s one of those characteristics that stands in contrast between commercial grower/breeder targets and what is desirable for a backyard/cottage scale grower. I don’t need or want my fruit to drop all at once or color up before it’s ripe.
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These Compton types are not only rare but little is known about them. We know some are not 100% American based on the names “Nikita”, “Rosseayanka” we know those are kaki hybrids.
I dedicated a thread just to them and came up with very little information as a result. DEC - DONALD EUGENE COMPTON PERSIMMON Varities .
@OckooMicrofarm came up with these
DEC Improved Rosseayanka
DEC Valeene Queen
DEC Wannabe #2
DEC Wannabe #3
DEC Double-Ziptie
DEC Goliath
DEC King Crimson
DEC Sugar Hill (Don’s current personal favorite?)
DEC Nikita x Thor F4, F5, F6
DEC Nikita x Thor C5 (male and female flowering
And we know of these
DEC Wannabe
DEC Double-Ziptie
DEC Goliath
DEC King Crimson
DEC Money Maker – from the breeding work of Donald E. Compton (DEC) in southern Indiana. Excellent fruit.
We also know of these
DEC Don’s Earliest
Brace #1
Brace #2.
DEC Large Morris Burton cross
@Buzzferver @disc4tw hopefully you know of the others that exist and maybe we can preserve them before they dissappear.
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According to North Point efforts are being made to preserve some of John Hershey persimmons.
“John Hershey— one of the nations earliest food forest visionaries. The John Hershey nursery is currently under threat of development, making each of these seeds wildly valuable. We were very fortunate to be given permission to harvest seed from the remanent of his nursery in Downingtown, PA”
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A little history and lots of useful information.
"Prok
Thought by many to be an Asian/American hybrid due to the fruit size being 30% larger than other American cultivars, ‘Prok’ is a pure 90 chromosome American persimmon from the mother ‘Pipher.’ The name comes from the acronym for ‘Persimmon Ralph Kreider’ who originally found ‘Pipher’ in Northern Illinois. ‘Prok’ has the highest flesh to seed ratio of any pollinated 90 chromosome persimmon and at 8 fruits to the pound, is thought to be the most viable American cultivar for commercial production. For Northern climates, ‘Prok’ is one of the earliest dropping cultivars and is well known to ripen before winter sets in.
Hardiness: Proven in zone 5b
Color: Peach to light orange
Size: Very large 2.5″-3″
Weight: 2 oz per fruit
Flavor: Mild, delicious
Ripening window for zone 5b: September 20th-October 1.
Parentage: Pipher x ?
John Rick
‘John Rick’ was selected by J.C. McDaniel (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) in 1958 and still receives widespread acclaim among persimmon growers for its large, handsome fruits. The orangey-yellow fruits are blushed red and are up to 2 inches in diameter. The skin and flesh are tender and flavorful. Its small calyx does not puncture other fruits in storage and combined with its overall attractiveness, ‘John Rick’ is a prime cultivar for fresh marketing. It ripens in early October. A five-year-old grafted tree often yields 40+ pounds of fruit, making ‘John Rick’ one of the highest yielding cultivars to date. Seedlings of ‘John Rick’ have been shown to be very vigorous and precocious.
Hardiness: Proven in zone 5b
Color: Orange-Yellow
Size: Large 2″
Weight: 1.5 oz per fruit
Flavor: Mild, delicious
Ripening for zone 5b: Oct 1- Oct 15.
Parentage: ‘Killen’ x ‘William’
Juhl
‘Juhl’ is one of the best pulping persimmons available, as it falls freely from the tree without its calyx and has a large flesh/seed ratio, often producing around 70% pulp. The fruit is large to very large and one of the earliest to ripen, usually in early-mid September in Indiana, but occasionally in late August. The fruit color is clear yellow with a slight red blush and heavy bloom. ‘Juhl’ has tender skin and flesh without astringency when ripe. She is a regular heavy bearer with an average of 10 fruits to the pound.
Hardiness: Proven in zone 5b
Color: Light/Clear Yellow
Size: Large 2″-2.5″
Weight: 1.5 oz per fruit
Flavor: Mild, delicious
Ripening for zone 5b: September 15th
Parentage: Unknown (probably a wild selection)
Morris Burton
‘Morris Burton’ was discovered by cows in Indiana. The Burtons had a large farm covered with persimmon trees, but all the animal trails led to this tree. When the owners tasted the fruit, they found out why it was so popular. The fruit is small and the flesh a beautiful red, but all who have tasted this one agree that it has the best flavor of all. J.C. McDaniels once said: “‘Morris Burton’ is the finest flavored persimmon under Illinois and Indiana conditions.” The sugar content is so high that you can cut the sugar added in recipes by 50% and get the required results. The foliage turns bright yellow in the fall and is very ornamental looking. It is precocious and bares large annual crops. 25 fruits to the pound.
Hardiness: Proven in zone 5b
Color: Dark orange
Size: Medium Small 1″-1.5″
Weight: .6oz/fruit
Flavor: Rich, Brown Sugar, Exceptional
Ripening for zone 5b: October 15th
Parentage: Wild selection"
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Juhl is Yates.
That seems like a weird story about Prok which was supposedly bred by George Slate at Geneva. I hadn’t heard that acronym before.
Korp might be “Krazy Old Red Persimmon” 
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Clark, the description of Morris Burton does not match original descriptions published nearly 100 years ago. Red color is a problem. Morris Burton is described as more “yellow” than most persimmons.
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Yes, Juhl = Yates. It’s actually bigger than Prok in my limited experience. There are lots of references to 3” diameter Prok fruits and Ive yet to see one over 2”.
I think @parkwaydrive was the source here on the forum of Prok having been an acronym. If memory serves, he was saying that John Gordon was really the “breeder” of Prok, and that he and Slate collaborated so thoroughly that their work was more or less a unified effort. Id not heard of ‘Pipher’ before, thinking it might have been a reference to a more well known older cultivar, ‘Pieper’, but apparently not.
Funny how stories get reshaped and abbreviated in the telling and retelling.
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Thought i would find out more about pipher. Since we are all way down the rabbit hole anyway, we might as well explore further!
"
Pipher- High fruit production-Hardy Central Illinois Strain
This strain was collected from the original Pipher tree in a small town in central Illinois. This extremely large tree is over 2 ft. in diameter and produces vigorous seedlings. Fruit production is very high. This strain is most likely the result of a chance seedling from a local population of persimmons that are not from cultivated selections. When I visited the tree many years ago the tree appeared to be the only one in the area but it still had fruit meaning it was possibly self fertile or I could not find where the male tree was!
All of the seedlings I have at my farm are very good yielders. Many of the male trees were strong growers as well. Definitely it was a good wild seed source from the small amount of seedlings that I ‘tested’. For a while, I liked this seed strain so much I ordered a lot of them from Ralph Kreider who had access to the original tree. From what he told me, the owners of the tree, liked having him clean up the fruit on their lawn. I grew and sold the seedlings under the Pipher name. It was one seed source that never had winter damage. Many of the seedlings showed large leaves as well. I kept some of the seedlings and put them in a single row partly in the shade of northern pecans on a sandy hillside. Many of them exhibit the black coloration on the skin of the fruit which seems to add a caramel type flavor to the fruit. Most ripen starting in mid to late October and goes through December. Fruit often stays in the tree into January and drops slowly.
Because of the large fruit sizes and the cold hardiness, this is a good seed source for the northern form of the American persimmon as well as developing cold hardy American persimmons and more vigorous forms of American Persimmon"
Some people breed persimmons for cold hardiness using “Early Golden, John Rick, Yates, Killen, Beaver, Pipher, and Morris Burton, among others.”