I’m new here, but I’ve been a lurker for a long time. I’m working on a persimmon research piece, and I’m struggling to understand the lineages of the American persimmon. There seem to be so many people breeding and unclear parents; has anyone tried to put together something of a ‘family tree’ of American persimmons so folks knew how different selections were related?
I think most of the past well known breeders have passed away perhaps not leaving many written tracks, sort of like trying to rediscover what Luther Burbank did for stonefruit breeding.
Perhaps someone like Cliff England at Englands Orchard could point you to some archives that may have been kept by Claypool and other breeders, if he does not know then it may not exist. Basically you have the northern 90 chromosome and the southern 60 chromosome varieties that probably have been used. Chances are many of the hybrid crosses were chosen from cross pollinated orchards based on fruit characteristic so perhaps even the breeders were not certain enough to write it down! I think you may not find exactly what you are seeking, but good luck.
Dennis
Kent, Wa
Early Golden is one of the parents of most named varieties. I’m sure others will chime in to supply more details though. I’m interested to see where this goes though as I’ve been searching for varieties not related to EG.
I think it would be helpful to understand and see commonalities between certain selections. Right now there seemed to be 4 generations:
19th century:
Dr. James Troop/O.M. Hadley and the 1895 bulletin. This is closely tied to the first selected American person, ‘Early Golden’, in 1880, whose discoverer is unnamed (AFAIK).
mid-20th century:
JC McDaniel: ‘John Rick’ & ‘Florence’.
Elwyn Meader: ‘Meader’
John Hershey: (Don’t seem to be named, I know Buzz Ferver is working with them and I should bug him for some clarification)
late-20th century:
James Claypool: (a ton, could use some verification on these, at least the big ones) I115, H118, H63A
Jerry Lehman: U-20A, 100-42, 100-43, 100-46, 100-47, WS8-10.
Donald Compton: (not sure)
Contemporary Breeders:
Buzz, Ken Asmus, Eliza, etc etc there’s quite a few now.
How that second-generation relates to the first (and the third to the second) will be very interesting to discover, IMHO.
Im not sure Buzz is a breeder… more of a fruit hunter and he grafts and makes things available by having a niche nursery. Maybe he has bred some.
Same for Eliza… she seems to be more of a fruit hunter and truth teller and writes some amazing histories.
To get the full story i think you would have to start with Floyd Sonneman. He was a prolific persimmon fruit hunter in the 1900s and grafted the best ones to be found in the US. Somewhere along the line Claypool took some or all of his trees and bred them… then Lehman expanded and when Claypool passed i think Lehman did the best that he could with Claypool’s massive collections.
John Hershey and Donald Compton also had breeding efforts as well as others.
You can probably still visit Sonneman’s farm… as they rent cabins and have bird hunting… supposedly there are still many persimmons left there on the farm… but not sure anyone has done that and posted about it.
You can still find many of the nut trees he grafted as well as a large variety of persimmon trees. He called this area “Experimental Gardens”.
Clark and others have done alot of history and sharing on this forum as well.
Here are some good threads-
Sonneman was obsessed and had the means to travel and find the best of the best to be found and graft them to grow on his IL farm. Its likely that most breeding after that happened either with his trees or trees that he had found. Hard to know exactly… but its a good start.
I can speak to Buzz’s persimmon pursuits… In his quest to develop a z4 winter-hardy persimmon, he has been planting named-cultivar seeds from orchards in the northern range of D.v.; somewhere upwards of 3-4 thousand, last time i heard him talk about it. Sown in seedling beds outdoors at his VT farm, the vast majority are killed outright over the first winter. He’s looking at a maximum of 0.5 to 1% being potential long-term survivors… And, as we know, there may be only 15-50%(at most) of those that turn out to be fruiting females.
Its a long slog that may end up producing nothing.
As a fruit developer / grower i can tell you it takes 10+ years for results if you are good at what you are doing. The thing that most people forget is you have to have tree seeds with potentially good genetics in the first place. It takes awhile to locate those. Most trees are not going to be all that great even if they had good genetics. One of my apples became wildly popular. I dont take credit for that apple the credit belongs to God. I didn’t patent or trademark it because certainly as Gods creation my only job is to put it in the hands of others. That is likely why God allowed me to grow it in the first place.
I tried running those threads through an AI to see if it could extrapolate any genetic lines and it said that there wasn’t enough detail to make clear ties.
I’ve seen Sonneman’s name brought up by Eliza but that’s about it. I might try to reach out to the farm and see if the current owners know anything about the genetics there, or if he kept any records. Knowing her, I’m sure she’s reached out to the Mitchell Persimmon Festival folks to see if they have any archives, but I might take a stab at that too.
Per Buzz (if I recall correctly, I’ll have to check my notes), Hershey’s persimmons were largely wild genetics and not connected to EG.
Yes…its possible that to some the better persimmons are wild finds anyways. So are many apples i think etc.
Yates…found in KY.
Early Golden- another IL find in the late 1800s/early 1900s
Garretson- perhaps a seedling of that Early Golden.
So probably the only way we have Garretson which may be ‘the best’ persimmon is that Garretson grew an Early Golden…which by chance set forth a seedling that led to Garretson.
Maybe they dont really need bred that much…but seedlings planted by the thousands of many folk…and maybe someday ‘the greatest’ will be found and gifted by God.
How many people other than God and nature plant a seed of a seedling then gather those seed and plant them and gather seed and plant those seed and on and on and on… that would take a lifetime… or in nature a blink of an eye… at least pre-1920s nature before man and machine began to conquor the land.
No telling how many persimmon seeds were defecated and dispersed by native animals, native americans… or discarded by Jamestown colonists…
It’s for sure a mix of chance, luck, and awareness, right? Most native tree crops had, at the very least, passive selection pressure (look at black walnut, honey locust, and butternut and how specific genetics overlap with Indigenous settlements), so there are, without a doubt, more wild genetics to be found. That said, given the amount of breeding happening, it’s hard to figure out what and why certain selections are better than others and where said traits may have come from.
Neil Peterson’s research on Pawpaws, for example, is great, and I think it also helps codify the contributions made by breeders that likely would otherwise be lost.
We always talk about trying to keep records of folks’ work and their contributions, but that also means contextualizing their contributions within the contributions of others, and that’s what I think is worth trying to do here.
If this document will upload, it may shed some light on the ‘family tree’.
I was thinking that John Raymond was in this group, but I’ve not seen a post from him in a while.
I made something like a ‘family tree’ but I created it as a list (due to complicated relationship for F1 and F2 crosses) do let me know if you have questions.
Going to your generation concept:
McDaniel used high inbreed, he evaluate Killen and Garretson as to highly resembling EG to be a outcross of it so likly both are S1 , William (father of his selections) comes to Urbana as understock from Illinois population so I’m 99% sure it’s EG seedlings from wild male pollen.
Meader taked Garretsom seeds from Geneva (Slate collection) where only pollen donors were EG and Garretson
Heshey - he don’t breed new cultivars as far as I know, modern trees from his orchard are survivors from his offer which contains EG, Garretson, Josephine, Lambert and more and seedlings.
Lehman - I found only a bit of records, he mostly crossed F1 trees from Claypool between them or with unrelated females. He also collected trees from wild/other collections like Pfiffer, Griff, Knightsville.
Campton - a big ‘?’ for me, only find out that Thor is a bud sport from his collection, likly from ‘Szukis’ but F-100 is also possible.
Campbell has his NC10 and I think a couple others. They are just more EG’s though. Is Mohler and Yates the only non inbred EG varieties that are distributed?
Campbell’s NC10 and NC21 are likly both EG x (EG x wild male). As for your question no, by nursery ;
A) England’s Orchard - Lena, Morris Burton, Munich, Union Star, Keener, Union Star, Brittain’s Blue, Craggs, Knightsville, Fruit Dump/Josephine, Knightsville
B) Need More Trees - Miller, Pipher, Halloween, Ruby (not sure if it’ J.A.Little’s or Talbot’s) , Golden Gem, Pfiffer, Muscatatuck, Burlington, Golden Supreme, Brigg’s
C) Perfect Circle - Hershey’s Blue for sure, you should ask Buzz which other of his Hershey’s comes from grated trees, part of them will be Garretson or EG. Also Shoto, Bald Eagle, Wabash
Worth mention is that Cliff have J-127 which mother tree (Runkwitzn) is likly extinct.
Ps. Yates is a synonym of Juhl, introduced by Talbot nursery before 1956.
Very helpful, thank you! I started collecting some of it in a Google sheets. It’s starting to make a bit more sense, but there definitely seems to be a bit of a gap. There seems to be quite a few named varieties that are referred to as parents for some new varieties but I can’t figure out where the parents are from. For example, George & Killen.
Additionally, the NNGA article has different background stories on Yates & Juhl, which is what I went with. Happy to change if you can clarify.
Apparently I can’t include links on here, so I’m including a screen grab of what I’ve got so far. If you’re looking to add, I have no problems with sharing the link.
Yates & Juhl were planted one near another by Jerry as I rememember. He spoke that they are the same tree. After some time some people find out that Yates bought the original tree from Talbot’s nursery and lost the tag. Whole store was available on YT but unfortunatelty this videos is delated.
As for my list (I don’t collected info about breeder/introducer only estimated date on offer/description) :
816 - <1999 @Lucky_P , Hopkinsville, KY street tree
Cataract - park tree, Indiana, same location as Zombie ? @parkwaydrive
Coffing - <1954 Indiana
Colby - <1939 Vermilion County Illinois
Coles - <1953
Conard - <1963 A survey of pears, nuts, and other fruit clones in the United States
Conchin - <1954
Contessa - seedling of Knightsville
Country Club - <1953
Craggs/Creggs - <1950 Harrisburg Indiana Hamsburg
Crain - <1954
Curry - <1956
Danielle’s Best - from abandond nursery in. Connecticuts. Forget to ask Buzz about the name of this nursery.
Dean-VM - <2000 John Gordon or Slate ?
Delight - <2001 S.IN. Noling River Nursery
Delmas - <1903 Scranton Missouri
Delphi <1963 A survey of pears, nuts, and other fruit clones in the United States
Dooly - <2008 ? synonym of Dollywood ?
Dr. Spencer/Spencer- <1952 Harrisburg Illinois
DT Middle Fascinated/Yardley Taylor/Downingtown Middle - Yardley Taylor Early Golden sport ?
Downingtown South - grfted from Hershey’s orchard
Early Bearing - <1915 J.A. Little Cartersburg Indiana
Early Golden - <1880 E.A.Riehl Alton Illinois
Easy - ?
Edmonds - <1954
Edris/Edrus - Center Point Iowa
Elder -1881 Lima Illinois
Etter/Fayette Etter - nr 01-09 likly grafted threes like Glidewell, Miller, Early Golden, Josephine from Zimmerman collection
Evelyn - <1982 Orealns/Upton Kentucky seedling of Garretson
Fannin - <1953
Fav Fav - ?
Fehrman - <1956 Kenneth A. Dooley North Vermont Indiana
Festimoon - <1964
Florence - <1964 Killen xWilliam
G1M - Garretson x William
G2M - Garretson x William
Gardner (Olney) - <1954 Olney Illinois
Garretson - <1920 Early Golden x Early Golden Adams County Pensylwania
Gateway - <2014 Taylor Yowell Ridgeland Missisippi
Gehron - ?
George - Killen x William - <1963 A survey of pears, nuts, and other fruit clones in the United States
Geneva Long - <1969 George Slate (possible mother trees : Garretson,Early Golden,Kitch,Josephine, Kansas, Killen, Penland, Hicks, Miller,Bleeker, Miles, Lambert,Conchin,Edmonds, John Rick,Meader,Juhl,Spencer,Lena,Fehrmann,Ruby,Pieper) x Garretson/EG
Geneva Red - <1969 George Slate seedling of Morris Burton x EG/Garretson
Glaser - <1963 A survey of pears, nuts, and other fruit clones in the United States
Glidewell - <1918 seedling of Little’s Ruby Bridgeport Indiana
Golden Gem - <1880 dzika Logan Martin Border Indiana
I’ve not been back to ‘visit’ the ‘816’ tree, which was growing in the very center of the front yard of a home up the street from my old office… Several apples/pears in the backyard, so I presumed that a previous(perhaps original?) owner had planted the persimmon. As ‘Early Golden’ and ‘Meader’ were about the only American Persimmons commonly available in the nursery trade in the 1970s-80s, i always figured ‘816’ was one of those two… Fully seeded, and usually bore so heavily that it broke branches annually. I have a graft of it out in the orchard, but most of my persimmons are so shaded by overtopping pecans, that productivity is very poor.
‘Keener’ has been reputed to be a hybrid bred by Luther Burbank, but nothing about it suggests kaki influence to me, and Jerry Lehman never found anything in Burbank’s writings to indicate that he was ever successful in hybridizing D.v X D.k.
'Shepard Rd. ’ was a KY native, ripening fruits by Sept 1 most years. It is no longer in existence.
I have ‘Super Sweet’(NC-21) tree… Scion came from Clifford England; it is NOT the same as NC-10… Smaller, round, later-ripening fruit than NC-10
I have ‘Wabash’… don’t recall who provided scions. It was selected primarily for red/purple fall leaf color, but here, the leaves are so tattered and black-spotted by that point in the season, that any color is almost imaginary. Pretty sure this is the IL-origin plant. Elmore Co., AL sounds more like someone equated it with ‘Redland Rd.’, which i selected for hot crimson fall leaf color (rivaling sumac); my graft of it died, and I’m not sure that the ortet is still in existence
