I have jam out of wild/native persimmon and once ripe, I think the taste is just as good as Japanese varieties, just smaller fruit, but is native. My favorite paw paw is Rebecca's Gold; large yellowish fruit matures a little earlier than my local native varieties. Another good one is Prolific; makes a lot of large round fruit with firmer flesh that's easier to spoon out of skin for making jam. You have to process paw paw fruit fast before it goes bad. Keeps up to a week or longer in refrigerator.

I'll be there. I've been to four of them so far. It's always informative and an inspirational experience.

I think I've seen socalwarm's greenhouse at Big Lots. I'm pretty sure it has a zipper-type door that opens to vent. I would like to have a quick set up green house like that, but I get high winds on top of the mountain here in winter, so I have to have heavy frame work for my coverings. I use black plastic garbage cans, 32 gallon, and spray painted some 5 gallon buckets and some gallon milk jugs to pack around my trees in winter. The black paint flakes off after a few years but so what. I have found that unless the water container is right up against the plant, there is not much thermal protection/ benefit. The plant tissue higher than the top of the water barrel tends to die off with the deep freeze. I've also noticed that when it is extremely cold, single digits or zero Degrees F, unless you have a heater in your plastic covered enclosure, the temperature in the enclosure will drop a degree or two every minute or less even with water barrel and jugs of water in there. Water barrels help some, but I don't think they are as influential as as they are touted to be,at least not in extreme cold situations. I still do them anyway!

Thanks!

When I called Hotel today and mentioned the citrus expo discount, I was told 202 dollars with tax for the two days. I booked online cheeper through my Exploria Marketplace account.

Mine send up new shoots/trunks/suckers every year. Native Sambucus Nigra. I tried clearing out the new suckers to leave one big trunk tree; however, I noticed that over time that big tree trunk just gets weaker with less new growth and branches each year. It degenerates naturally and needs those new sucker to form new tree trunks. I've noticed that the canadensis native in our high mountains has similar growth habit. It's really a no worry shrub; they do well in poor soils and even under the plant-killing black walnut tree. I doubt there's a variety that doesn't send new growth from ground/roots.

And, the reality is that if you live somewhere where it ever gets down to 5 degrees, you are going to have nights and days when it never gets above freezing, sometimes not getting above freezing for several days. If the temps don't rise above freezing when the sun comes up the morning after the cold snap, your citrus ( other than trifoliata) is in trouble.

If planting paw paw, remember they don't like trauma to roots when planting. I'd leave rootball intact as much as possible. Usually not planting a huge tree anyway. Paw paw likes water so wouldn't worry about planting hole turning into too much of a sink if planting in well drained soil versus thick clay. Most trees we buy from nurseries are in a bark mixture potting soil, we plant tree in ground, and it grows. If all soil falls off roots, we stick them roots in hole and fill it in with dirt/soil, and plant usually does just fine. No worries, man!

I've seen FD planted at Biltmore House in Asheville, NC, in a big mass planting like a bed of azaleas, each plant/ bush about 4 ft tall and 4 or 5 ft spaced apart; one could still walk between the individual trees. They tend to be taller than wide, almost columnar.

Greenhouse culture in states where citrus can't survive the cold winters. It will be a novelty fruit and no longer used for juice commercially.

I live on top of a mountain and my trees are on well drained black sandy soil on gentle slope growing under tall black walnut tree but get a good bit of full sun every day. I put rock berms around each tree and mulching when planted about 6 years ago. I had ordered 4 trees from Raintree Nursery with one I know is My Rebecca's Gold and I think one was "Prolific ", and the other two were just seedlings. I have planted a few more that I grew from wild local seed. They all seem to produce well, wether I hand pollinate or not. Each year I'll have one or two trees that seem to alternate bear which I think is due to varied flower maturation timing with male/female phases. Rebecca's Gold is softer  and yellower than my other greener and firmer fruited varieties, but I like its flavor and pudding-like texture more. Either way, I have to go check all fruits on all trees daily or I'll find some nice big fruits half mashed on ground from falling off trees. I'm currently making jam out of all paw paws I gather since I can't eat them fast enough before they go bad. The Prolific paw paw doesn't seem to be much different from other seedlings. All the trees look the same. Now that my trees are well established, I don't have to irrigate much unless we have bad drought.

Trees are tuff. I'd try to save it.