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[Jwlehman@aol.com]

The question was: Does this sound reasonable Shipova will bear 3 to 4 years after grafting, given that Shipova normally doesn't bear until the 7th year or later?

Yes, Doreen that is not only reasonable but most likely, based on my experiences with grafting many species. However one thing to keep in mind I'm grafting material in the ground, not bare root material. 

The difference, as explained to me, is plants from seed aren't mature wood while wood taken from bearing trees is mature wood. I've never had a good explanation of that but my experience with dozens of persimmon is the average time from seed to fruit is about 6 years while the average time from graft to fruit is 3. Generally, I'd say bearing from graft is about half the time as from seed. Again, I'm grafting onto established root material.  

But with persimmon planting a grafted tree to bearing is nearly the same as seed to bearing. It generally takes two years for a persimmon to reestablish it's root system and begin good active growth. 

Now back to the, "mature wood" theory. If that is right then grafting wood from a one year seedling should take longer to bear. I've done that a few times and it does seem to take longer even when grafting it onto mature bearing trees. But I've not kept records therefore is not scientific. However this may carry over into the apical dominance theory and those that I grafted from seed were the growing tip, not side branches.  

This post is all observation and no science!

Jerry