North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Lucky Pittman <lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu>]

At 08:58 PM 11/26/2005, Richard wrote:
> Jerry signed off: "Where
> kaki can't be grown. :-("
> Jerry, I'm still hopeful for you, as below.
> We've heard on this list of folks fruiting Hana Fuyu in
> PA.

Other varieties, as well - including Sheng(see excerpted POMONA article
below) and Great Wall.

Gordon Nofs sent me this snippet from Don Jackson's POMONA article(I
thought I had the issue - sometime in '96? - but can't lay my hands on it
at the moment), and if memory serves correctly, he also mentioned having
grown & fruited Great Wall there.

SHENG PERSIMMON: A SURVIVOR
Donald Lee Jackson Sr.  9006 Camp Roar  Red Lion, Pa
17356-9432

Sheng Oriental persimmons will grow in south central Pa but, when we have
a 
-20 degree spell, the severe cold will do them in. However, if you have a
sizable tree that freezes back, due to severe cold as mentioned above, do
not cut the stump off. I consider myself in zone 6 with an average low
temperature of -10 to -0 degrees F. The (2) twenty-year old Sheng trees
were 
producing 600+ 5oz persimmons per tree before the 1992/1993 hard freeze.
Since the freeze, the stumps of these trees have profusely grown many
shoots 
above the grafts. The trees have not begun to produce yet, but I expect a
crop in 1996 because two other varieties of my orientals that froze back
produced more than 20 fruits this year (1995).

Several additional reasons for hope for Jerry (and me):
> Clifford England has killed many
> kakis cultivars at their nursery in the mountains of eastern Kentucky,
> including most all of what are commonly sold .  They are selling two
> that work: Shin Na Da and Hokkaido, that are multiyear survivors and
> bearers under their conditions.  See
> www.nut
> trees.net 
I've got Hokkaido started, as well as a couple of
as-yet-unnamed 'Korean' selections that Cliff has made - no fruit on any
of them yet.
Got my first fruits on Great Wall this year - after having several kaki
selections freeze out in their first winter after grafting, GW, which was
high-worked about 6-6.5 ft up in a vigorous shoot (I'd bush-hogged over a
nice 3" persimmon seedling a couple of years earlier) was the only
survivor of that year's efforts.  
It has grown an additional 6-7 ft in the intervening 3 -4 years, and set
a number of fruits, the majority of which dropped off in midsummer, but
it has matured two - ate one this morning - pretty tasty; even my wife
liked it.

Lucky