Compared to the number of nurseries that offer the more conventional fruit trees, like apples, pears, peaches, etc., there aren't nearly so many that specialize in persimmons, and even the few that may carry a few persimmons usually have a very limited offering. I'm not aware of many commercial outfits that offer persimmon scionwood for sale - only one I can think of, off the top of my head, is John H. 'Nuttree' Gordon, Jr., in Amherst, NY and he what he's got are D.virginiana selections. I've currently got somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 D.virginiana and 10-12 D.kaki varieties grafted and growing, with a handful having reached fruiting age(only kaki to fruit here, so far, has been 'Great Wall'), and other than 3 selections, I've obtained scions from all the rest, in trade or just for the asking, from other fruit enthusiasts and friends. If you're not a NAFEX member, let me recommend it - I've got contacts and 'friends' all over the country who've allowed me access to plant materials I'd never have even know about otherwise. Here is a link that might be useful: NAFEX

For those of you interested, I have Giant Fuyu (Hana Gosho) and Jiro scionwood I could part with this spring but in very limited amounts. I also have a Tigertooth jujube but unfortunately I already pruned the thing out of impatience. I'm pretty sure Roger Meyer ships not only bareroot grafted jujubes but scionwood as well (with sealing tape too if you request it). I've done a veeery extensive amount of research on how to grow persimmons and only a select few can be planted in zone 6 without having to worry about them, but i'm sure most all varieties (except hachiya) can be left alone once they're mature. All persimmons will benefit from a good mulching and some burlap, especially while they're young. Saijo's got to be hands-down the most cold-hardy variety there is if your winters are that brutal, Great Wall I've heard does well too, but it's more ornamental than for taste. I've also heard that Chocolate (Tsurunoko) can take the winters in zone 6 provided there aren't any severe winter winds, plus it's to die for (so I've heard, ordered a tree so I can test it myself ^-^). Also look into the PVNA types, as they're all very sought out for their taste: Chocolate, Nishimura Wase (coffecake), and Maru. Keep in mind you need a pollinator to ensure they'll be non-astringent, Giant Fuyu and Chocolate are great pollenizers. Giant Fuyu's so good it's worth growing on it's own just for it's extremely sweet and crunchy fruit. I've no clue where to find scionwood for these varieties but ask some avid persimmon gardeners in California if they have any, there's a good chance you'll find some :)

Along the lines of what Lucky was saying, I think there's probably an important distinction between the freezing temperature of pure water and "actual freezing." I'm not sure what "actual freezing" would mean for scions, but I assume there are parallels to things like harvested fruit or meat. I believe the large-scale nitrogen-filled storage facilities for apples (and I think pears, too) are kept just below 32 degrees, because the sugars in fruit prevent apples, etc. from actually freezing until temperatures get 2 or 3 - I'm just throwing out a guess here - degrees colder. I know meat is similar, even though sugars aren't at play. If you put ice bottles in a cooler with hard frozen meat, you'll notice the meat will thaw before the ice will. The freezing temperature of meat I think is around 28 degrees. So if you wanted to optimize the storage life of meat WITHOUT freezing it, you'd keep it at 29 degrees. There must be something similar with scions. I also wonder why scions couldn't be stored at temperatures as cold as they'll withstand on the tree. In other words, if a piece of a tree is fully hardy to -10F on the tree, what changes when you cut it off? I'm assuming something must be different. Does it just have to do with moisture migration (as with freezer burn)? Or are cell walls getting ruptured as when you freeze strawberries and thaw them and their texture is nothing like it was fresh? Harvestman, to your concerns about the fluctuations that a thermostatic control like that would allow, I don't think it would be hard to buffer those fluctuations to effectively make them disappear. One idea I'd have for a buffer would be a contained salt solution (obviously you wouldn't want any salt contacting the scions) that would freeze-thaw at the desired temperature -- there are charts to easily figure out how much salt will drop the freezing temperature of how much water how far -- but sand or sawdust or anything would work so long as the fluctuations in the temperature around the thermostat probe didn't penetrate the insulating/buffering material faster than the on-off cycles.

link This post was edited by Gardening_Maestro on Wed, Feb 4, 15 at 5:42