Strudeldog--I may have been a little early, but several of my Hachiya's upper branches had sprouted a few tiny leaves, so I went ahead and grafted, using Joe Real's method (I copied and pasted his online instructions into a Word doc and printed it for easier access). Hopefully the parafilm will be enough protection and the grafts won't need additional shielding from Tucson's heat & UV, although I may wrap a little aluminum foil just to be safe.
Susan, if I understand it correctly, you can graft any persimmon varieties onto American Persimmon seedlings. If my grafts work this year, and my American Persimmon seedlings survive and get thick enough, I'll cut new scionwood next spring and graft onto my seedlings.
Gina, I agree about the excellent taste and quality of dried Hachiyas--although I wait until they're gooshy ripe, then cut them in half, scoop out the flesh with a big spoon, gently slice each half once more (parallel to the first cut), and dry them in the dehydrator. They make wonderful fruit leather too--after scooping out the flesh as above, I put them in a bowl and liquify them with a hand mixer before pouring onto drying rack with non-stick sheet. Both methods are well-suited to drying in an Excalibur food dehydrator, but I've never gotten to dry them in any major quantity. My family loves the fresh persimmons so much that most of them get eaten as soon as they're ripe enough.
To bring the topic back to figs, today I also tried grafting an LSU Improved Celeste, Scott's Black, and a Black Madeira onto an inground UCR 135-15s, using Joe Real's method with scionwood that seemed thin enough to stand a good chance of working. All of these are the first grafts I've ever done, so who knows what (if any) the harvest will be? When the UCD cuttings arrive, if any of them are thin enough I'll try grafting them as well, and then try to root the thicker stuff in the normal way. Later in the season I'll do a separate post about how the fig grafts fared.