I tried Prok this season from a friends orchard and I wasn't impressed by the flavor as it lacked over all character and sweetness. However the texture was nice compared to some of the other american persimmons i've tried, as well as the size. It was definitely more firm than others. I have heard from some sources that Prok has some asian in it, but I don't know if this is true. Here is a picture of one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25212487@N04/6224647515/in/photostream I also tried a claypool selection from another friends farm and again, compared to some of the other persimmons I've tried(which I'll explain next), it lacked over all flavor complexity. However it was sweeter than Prok. Here is a picture of that...unfortunately I don't remember the cultivar name, probably because it consisted of a few numbers and was easy to forget. Anyways, it was a claypool selection: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25212487@N04/6271281968/in/photostream My best american persimmon experiences were all at Oikos Tree Crops in southwest, MI where I spent several months examining the american persimmons trees planted there. All of which are seedlings from good selections, i.e. yates, morris burton, etc. Ken Asmus has wonderful seedling planting with over 500 mature trees. There is incredible variation in fruit size, color, texture, flavor, and ripening time. Some don't even ripen in some years. We are working on developing a selection of cultivars from this planting that will be grafted and hopefully available in the nursery trade. These will be some of the northernmost american perisimmon selections, which is great for folks like me in MI where ripening can be a problem. One tree in particular was a seedling of Morris Burton and had AMAZINGLY delicious fruit with very high sugar content and a delectable flavor with butter scotchy notes..by far the sweetest I have ever tried. The flesh on this variety was a rich reddish color...very beautiful. Here is short video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iofe3u5pruY&list=UUsSu_6ip07ywsY37D35Cm8w&index=10&feature=plcp Out of the seedling population we also found a tree that produces blue skinned fruit. And not just a touch of blue but very blue! Here is a nice picture of it: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4083/5167939059_56e3a070e3_z.jpg If you're in Michigan or a similar climate where ripening can be an issue I would consider planting some seedlings from Oikos Tree Crops if you have the space. Sorry I don't have more info about specific cultivars, will have more to come. Cheers!

As I do not get a lot of time to read all I would Like when I do I find some very interesting commits and I am thankful We do have many persimmons available this year and others we are sold out of but this coming season we will have a large selection to choose from as we will have some many root stock that it will take the majority of the farm trees scion wood to graft all the root stock we will have . Many new and exciting cultivars will be introduced and some for the first time cultivars such as Kasandra , Sistroyonka = big sister and a few that are so large and hardy that you would swear they are Kaki Last winter was a very hard one for us as the winter temps reach minus 23.4 Celsius or -11 degrees F and we lost 268 grafted Kaki trees there are some survivors like Korea Kaki, Inchon, Vaniglia, , CHinibel, Miss Kim, Shan Xi, Orest, and Chibacha that had not winter injury at all look forward to talking with all of you Cliff England

Steve, What you saw with the containerized persimmon was effectively "mound layering". Interesting to know that persimmon will do that. If the air layering doesn't work, you might try mound layering again....it would take longer, since you would first have to grow out seedlings, then graft, but it may be your only option to make named persimmons on their own roots. I really don't think air layering will work with paw paw...I think it would be widely known if it did, given the problems people seem to have with grafted paw paws. The KSU web site makes some references to experimenting with mound layering paw paws, and there is a picture or two, but no reports of success. Carla, Willow water is essentially a crude extract from willow branches. It can be used to induce rooting like synthetic rooting hormone, and the lore is that it works better than simple rooting hormone in some instances. There's a post on the topic in this thread: Here is a link that might be useful: willow water explanation a little more than halfway down

Hi all. Has anyone tried growing a persimmon in the North (zone 4)? I’m in Southern AB and am thinking about getting one from whiffletree next year.