The Wye plantation in eastern Maryland has a big orchard of old persimmon trees, 50 or more years old. Some old varieties still doing well there when I visited a few years ago included Tecumseh, Saijo, Sheng, King Sun (Kyungsun Ban-Si), Great Wall, Aizu Michirazu, Giboshi, etc. Most of the varieties had died over the years, maybe 1/3 were still alive. For example all the Hachiya and Fuyu had died.

Scott

I have a Tecumseh tree that's about seven years old. It's thought to be a Great Wall seedling, and the two are somewhat similar, but the Tecumseh ripens later, and the tree is faster growing and larger. I prefer my very prolific dwarf Great Wall. The Tecumseh and a number of my other persimmons were exposed to at least -11F this winter with only a sheet of ice for protection, so its survival is questionable.

Creekweb, I'd certainly be interested to hear how your persimmons survived -11F if you think to post something later. I suppose this will be a test year for a lot of northern growers. Here in NC we got some of the cold that the Upper Midwest and Northeast got (7F), and it was colder than the last winter or two, but we had a colder dip about 4 years ago (to 3F). I hope you'll find a lot of survivors.

Scott, thanks very much for that list. That's very interesting. I tried looking up Wye Plantation, but I couldn't find much. It seems there's a privately owned plantation house, but how do you know about the persimmons? Is there a public or research part of the plantation? Are the persimmons part of a commercial orchard?

There is a U Maryland research site there which has the persimmons. There was an article in the NAFEX Pomona some years ago and thats how I learned about it. I visited about five years ago; someone told me it has not been well looked after recently, but I have not been back to see myself.

Scott

Creek, CF,Scott,

My Hybrid persimmons: Rossyanka and Nikita's Gift had no problem with the -13F for three nights without any protection. Ichi Ki Kei Jiro persimmon, and all the figs did OK with the wrapping stuffed with dried leaves. I scratched their barks and they were green and flexible. The hardy Russian Pomegranate survived the -13F with the protection also. From here on, I will let the Nikita's Gift hybrid persimmon un-protected to see how low of the temp in -F before damage occurred.

Tony

Thanks again, Scott. If I'm ever up in that vicinity I'd love to stop by and see a bunch of mature trees like that.

By the way, what type is Aizu Michirazu? Is it another PCA? Does that make the whole list of long-term survivors from Wye plantation PCA's? I've heard the PCA's are generally more cold-hardy than the PCNA's, but what about the PV's?

I recall hearing Aizu was a PVA, pollination variant astringent. That type is not common and some classified as PCA may in fact be PVA. What it means is its astringent until ripe but needs pollination for good flavor. All of the PCNA ones at Wye died. There was Maru left as a PVNA.

Scott

This post was edited by scottfsmith on Tue, Jan 21, 14 at 12:55

Scott, If I remember correctly there were 2 sites in MD that they were testing persimmons, do you know if I am right about this? And I think one was zone 6 and the other in zone 7. I thought I remembered reading that tam kam and gwangyang had fruited following minus 5 degree winters but not sure about this. I think this info was published in a bulleton/booklet put out by MD extension. A retired co-worker of mine I believe had a copy unless I read this info on the web somewhere - I cannot find anything about it now on the web.

A clipping from a GW member:

"RE: Help my choose a Persimmon variety (Follow-Up #1)
posted by: Lucky_P on 11.04.2005 at 05:06 pm in Fruit & Orchards Forum

Alex,
Russian Beauty(Rosseyanka) is a D.virginianaXkaki hybrid; Nikita's Gift(Nikitskaya Bordovaya) is a seedling of Rosseyanka back-crossed to D.kaki. Both are astringent until ripe - and yes, that means until they are mushy. Nikita's Gift sustains pretty severe winter damage at Terre Haute, IN most winters(esp. when temps drop below zero), but RB has been unaffected.
I have Ichi and Hana Fuyu in my collection - neither have fruited yet, but neither have I noticed any particularly good fall color.
Great Wall, however, does have good red/orange fall color, but I'm of the understanding that it, too, is an astringent until ripe variety. Mine has its first two fruits this year, but I'm waiting for them to soften and lose their astringency.
Have seen recent reports from a friend in the Bristol TN/VA area who has Hana Fuyu, and it is a good producer for him there.
Saijo usually gets good reports, and is reliably hardy in zone 6, as is Sheng (I know Sheng & Great Wall will perform in PA). My friend Clifford England likes Hokkaido - and it is a genetic dwarf, if I recall correctly, so even on a vigorous D.virginiana rootstock, it should remain small(though you may have to keep rootstock suckers pruned off).
RE: Patapsco persimmon (Follow-Up #2)
posted by: lucky_p on 11.20.2006 at 02:49 pm in Fruit & Orchards Forum
The Spring 2006 issue of POMONA, the official publication of the North American Fruit Explorers had several good articles on Asian persimmons.
In the 1920s & 1930s, J.Russell Smith grafted a number of Asian persimmons onto native D.virginiana roostock on his farm/nuresery in the Blue Ridge mountains of VA, near the WV border. At one time, Smith had 29 different Asian persimmons thriving and fruiting in his plantings. Over the past 6 years or so, Mr. Willam Preston has found the following varieties still surviving and fruiting in Smith's abandoned plantings: Giboshi, Shaumopan, Kishimoto, Manerh, Pen, Tsurushigaki, Smith #1 & #4, Delicious, Aizu Michirazu, Yokono, Akadango, Benigaki, Great Wall, Peiping. Others are no longer present there, but did they succumb to winter damage, disease, or were they just overcome by encroaching reforestation, after abandonment?
Mr. Preston also penned an article on the 'Status of Oriental Persimmon Planting at Eastern Shore of Maryland', an overview of the D.kaki plantings at the Wye Reseach & Education Center, with data dating back to 1966.
Both articles might be worth researching, if you're wanting to grow D.kaki.
Here is a link that might be useful: NAFEX
NOTES:
Oriental persimmon that survived the past 80 years in zone 6 virginia are:
Giboshi, Shaumopan, Kishimoto, Manerh, Pen, Tsurushigaki, Smith #1 & #4, Delicious, Aizu Michirazu, Yokono, Akadango, Benigaki, Great Wall, Peiping.
clipped on: 11.21.2006 at 05:55 am last updated on: 11.21.2006 at 05:57 am"

Lucky has posted many times about this subject, and a search here will find much more.

Some of the above info is more about surviving the kind of winters we are now having rather than flavor and productivity. I can vouch for Smith's Best (Giboshi)--when pollinated, it is the best I've ever had; but not productive so far. Kung San Ban Si has also been declared a winner by at least a couple of other posters here.

The link below says "Cultivars that are especially hardy in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia include: 'Atome', 'Benigaki', 'Delicious', 'Eureka', 'Great Wall', 'Manerh', 'Okame', 'Peiping', 'Pen', 'Shaumopan', 'Sheng,' 'Tsurushigaki', 'Yokono', etc."

Here is a link that might be useful: Kaki

Shane, I was looking into this several years ago and can't remember the information I found.

Its interesting there are several common varieties on the above lists and those you can certainly take as hardy ones.

Scott

Most here seem to be concerned about the northernmost range and cold hardiness of persimmons...

But, would Asian or American persimmons be better able to take high (100°+ F) August heat & drought in Dallas, TX (8a) or just south of that (8b)?

And which varieties of either could weather such HOT conditions best?

Here is a link that might be useful: Best American Persimmon Cultivars?

I've planted a dozen types, they all do well in Dallas. Only one I'm wondering about is my Suruga, it might need a longer growing season, but it hasn't fruited yet so the juries still out

^ Do you ever have to water them? If so, when and how much?

Or can they simply subsist on the natural rainfall in Dallas (40.55" per year)?

Here is a link that might be useful: Dallas Average Rainfall

Interesting conversation.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but did want to make a comment about statistics. Often people use the term "average" which is the mean, but think of it as one would "median".

Say there are 10 farmers. One makes $2,000,000 a year and the other 9 make $20,000 a year each.

Their average income is $218,000 but their median income is $20,000.

Is that a well off group of farmers because their average income is $218,000?

Yes they need extra water, especially June-Sept. If they're part of a sprinklered lawn that seems to work if you mulch. They'll live without extra water but won't grow much

I tend to think of Dallas as 34in/yr, we must be using different sources

I have two Asian Persimmon trees. They survived 6 and 5 winters respectively. But both were perished in this Winter. Last year I got about 40 big sweet fruits.

They are Makawa Jiro and Gwang Yang both ordered from Edible Landscaping.

I live in suburban North of Philadelphia.

JHGT,

Beautiful tree, so sad. Hopefully, the rootstocks will re-sprout and you can bark graft some of the same varieties or something else on them again.

Tony

creekweb, if you see this thread again, I'd be very interested to hear how your persimmons survived the hard test they were getting the last time you commented on this thread.

Scott, looking back at something you said, I'm wondering about what you said about no PCNA's surviving long-term at Wye. Isn't 20th century a PCNA? Didn't it survive? Isn't it also one you grow?

CF
My Ichi and Nikita's Gift hybrid persimmom died back to the main trunk with -17F despite of wrapping for winter protection. They re -sprout back nicely.

Tony

This post was edited by tonytran on Fri, Nov 7, 14 at 19:28

Here is the Nikita's Gift hybrid persimmom.

Tony

My Tecumseh died back to the main trunk but had very vigorous regrowth and ended the season about 7 feet tall. Still will need a couple more seasons growth to fully recover from the damage. Details on some of the other varieties below.

Here is a link that might be useful: persimmon damage

creekweb, thanks for the link to that older thread. I wasn't able to keep up with this forum this summer, so I missed that.