North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[martha_davis@highstream.net]

I can't give you full details, but Bill Vose has quite a few persimmons at his
zone 4 location substantially west of Chicago.  They are not really old trees,
but are well established and fruiting (and ripening), at the point that I saw
them about 3-4 years ago. I think NC-1 was one of them.

I used to worry about maturing American persimmon on the tree.  However when a
demo branch that was cut for a fruit show ripened well, I thought I would test
for after ripening ability.  I collected 3-6 persimmon that were starting to
turn color, but were firm and still greenish from each of maybe 20 trees in
Claypools Orchard.  The
persimmons from each tree were put into a paper lunch bag and then I put all
the lunch bags in an open cardboard box.  I had them inside at room
temperature.  In a week most were nicely ripe with no astringency.  In two
weeks they were overripe.  If I put single fruit on a window sill and tried to
ripen it like I would a Kaki they dry up and are still astringent.  I saw
little difference in ripening ability.  The technique worked well for all I
tried with little or no differences between trees. I didn't try ones that were
extreemly green maybe a month from ripening on the tree. So I would reccomend
an early variety picked before temperatures get into the twenties.

Persimmons can be hard to establish from transplants.  They must be baby sat 
and
consistantly watered well for the whole of the first season.  They are very
likely to have dieback because they stop producing root growth once they start
shoot growth. Because of this it is very easy for a new transplant to outgrow
it's roots and hence it's water supply.  Dieback the first year after planting
is so common that it doesn't really say much about the hardiness of 
established
trees.  This is why Jerry is suggesting starting from seed.

Martha


Never mind zone 3. Does anyone have a mature diospyros virginiana that 
reliably
withstands zone 4 winter temperatures (-29*C to -35*C)without injury?
What minimum temperature has it sustained and withstood?

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Jwlehman@aol.com wrote:
Hi Jim,

I'm going to place myself out on a limb and give you my best guess as I'm in
zone 5b. No, there isn't likely a zone three persimmon. But I'd like to see 
you
try an early bearing variety such as Juhl or Claypool's H-118, a daughter of
Juhl.

Once established D. virginiana (90 chromosome race) may survive your winters 
but
likely you don't have a long enough growing season for fruit to mature and
ripen. Even here in central west Indiana (zone 5b) the 60 chromosome persimmon
doesn't ripen. I've tried several of them. They survive our winters, and we
often get below -10F, but fruit stays green because the growing season ends 
too
soon.

One more thing. You may have better luck establishing persimmon by starting 
from
seed, then grafting.

Jerry

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In a message dated 6/11/2007 8:40:46 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
jfruth@tds.net writes:

 Is there really a zone 3 persimmon?  I bought two,alleged, zone 3
(wild?) persimmon last year and, after an unusually mild Winter, one died
down to the (almost no) snow line and the other died completely.