Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Zone 6 & Asian persimmon - lowest minimum temperature survived? Cultivar?

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Richard Moyer <ramoyer@gmail.com>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Zone 6 & Asian persimmon - lowest minimum temperature survived? Cultivar?
  • Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:59:55 -0500

Steven,
Glad you are asking these and other fruit questions. This kaki topic
has been covered extensively in list archives, more info than can be
distilled here. And excellent info been written in past Pomonas as
well, and presented during at least one NAFEX annual meeting.

To summarize:
1) Michael McConkey, at Edible Landscaping near Staunton, VA, has been
growing, eating and selling kaki persimmons for many years. Worth a
pilgrimage to his place to see what's possible with fruits for your
eastern climate. Most of my kakis are from him. Phone or Email him,
or check out his website with cultivar descriptions and kaki Q&A
there.
2) A shorter trip for you would be to the U of Maryland Research and
Extension Center, where there is a collection of kaki trees, some
there for decades. The most valuable reading for your question I have
found is a distillation of observation and research there, a research
bulletin entitled:
'Kakis in the Home Landscape', an examination of those kakis that have
survived severe winters, charts showing degrees of damage to cultivars
at certain winter temps.
Contact Michael Newell
Faculty Research Assistant & Program Manager, Horticultural Crops
Wye (WREC)
EMail: mnewell@umd.edu
Phone: 410 827-7388
Alternate: 410 827-8056

3) My observation and others is that for Zone 6/7, it is not the
absolute winter minimum that kills kakis, but late spring freezes
after the trees have broken dormancy.
The great Easter Freeze of 2007 killed 10 out of 12 'cold hardy' kaki
cultivars I had, most of them 4-8 inches in diameter. The two that
survived unscathed are 'Hira Tanenashi' and 'Sung Hui', only because
neither had broken dormancy. We ate and sold many fruits from these
two trees this fall, until Christmas. Three nights of +19, 24 and 27
F killed the other 10 'cold hardy' cultivars to the ground. In the
mountains of Korea, I observed huge, old kaki trees at Buddhist
temples. So it's "not always how cold it gets, but how/when it get's
cold", especially for some of these Asian plants we try to grow in the
eastern US.

4) Cliff England, at Nut Tree nursery in KY, also is trialing cold
hardy kakis. Some of his material from northern Japan and north
Korea.

Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2011 03:06:06 -0500 (EST)
From: Steven Covacci <filtertitle@aol.com>
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [NAFEX] Zone 6 & Asian persimmon - lowest minimum temperature
survived? Cultivar?
Message-ID: <8CD7EB45D926512-1848-5D352@Webmail-m107.sysops.aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

For those in USDA zone 6, what was the lowest minimum temperature your
Asian persimmon (what cultivar) has survived. Some say cv. 'Saijo'
can survive -12 F? Of course, a lot of this has to do with the
progression into such low temperatures so that the tree is prepared.

Thanks,
Steve
New Jersey, USDA 6b/7a




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page