I don’t know. I quoted verbatim from the notes at the start of the document linked elsewhere detailing Claypool’s orchard records… Notes at the end of the document are attributed to Jerry Lehman. I assume – but can’t prove – that the notes at the start are from him as well. Anyway, it seems to me that anyone who has Claypool’s orchard records has a presumption of credibility.
Honestly, I don’t understand your point about fruit size. Sure, Asian persimmons are generally larger than American persimmons. But how is “large size” a niche that can only be occupied by one persimmon species?
Asian and American varieties are different in many different ways. In most respects, the Asian persimmon is a superior fruit, thanks to centuries of domestication. But American persimmons (1) are way more cold hardy, and (2) enjoy a different flavor. Hybrids bring American cold-hardiness and flavor tones to an otherwise Asian package. Possibly, continued breeding of pure American varieties will make them more like Asians in terms of size, skin quality, flesh quality, and calyx integrity.
I’m just repeating what Claypool had said somewhere. It was in his NAFEX writings or on video. From what he said, it clearly seemed to be a low priority if you were assigning weights to judging criteria. Sure, I suppose he didn’t want tiny fruit where seed to flesh ratio would be high for pulping.
If someone thinks the genetics are there to make a larger pure D.V., more power to them. Collect your largest varieties (or offspring from) and let the crosses begin.
What is the market? A grocery store fruit? Won’t happen. Asians already occupy that niche with bland fruit, and D.V. just won’t store/ship like that (or like apples/pears or any other). But, I suppose give it 1000 years (minus direct gene manipulation). Commercial growing for pulp? Size doesn’t matter, in fact seeds don’t matter. Home grower? I suppose size could be something to talk about, but what does it gain beyond that?
Given that reality, is someone prepared to fund or take on a sustained breeding program of the scale (thousands of trees) to move the needle at all? What is the payoff?
@snowflake – I take your point that odds of quick success are low, and it’s not obvious that anyone would embark on the project for commercial reasons. But there have been many growers like Claypool who have made serious efforts with noteworthy progress. And IMO, we’re closer to a place where we could declare victory – If someone could start with H63A (Morris Burton x Early Golden) and (1) improve the flavor, which is already good; and (2) hasten the loss of astringency, which is already OK, we’d have a killer fruit for the home garden across temperate growing zones.
I also agree that size should be a low priority. I’d rather grow blueberries or raspberries than most (much larger) wild persimmons. The small fruits of D. lotus comprise a huge market in Anatolia, so small size is no impediment. So for me, large size is “nice to have” but not essential.
Finally I’d note that many of the same issues exist regarding pawpaws. Nevertheless, there are breeding projects. I don’t really care if the result is a commercially viable variety. I just want a great fruit that I can grow myself with a reasonably high probability of success.
Maybe figs provide a good example of a satisfactory end state. Millions of people grow figs in the back yard – including me. But the fruit must be picked ripe and it ships poorly, so the “fresh figs” that appear in supermarkets far from the trees are horrible, either underripe or moldy. Only processed (e.g., dried) fruit is commercially viable at any distance. If we could get American persimmons (and/or pawpaws) to a remotely similar place – reliably delicious when grown in the backyard – most of us would be very happy. I hope that’s enough motivation.
I think breeding is a fun exercise. I’m glad people are doing it and new discoveries are made.
Sort of a side note related to commercial options. If you could get the general public to accept frozen whole persimmon in the store, then we could likely declare victory now with some of the existing known varieties. Acceptance would be the issue. People buy frozen veggies. Why not frozen whole persimmon? They would ship if they could stay frozen. Anyone willing to take on that marketing endeavor might have a faster path to success.
Tangential to the discussion at hand, but Buzz Ferver, at his VT Perfect Circle Farm, has been working for a few years now, on trying to develop/select zone 4-hardy D.virginiana. He’s planted over 35,000 seed - all from z5/6 orchards with multiple named cultivars - so all seed parents are producers of ‘quality’ fruit, with acceptable hardiness - at least for zones 5/6.
Over a 3 year period almost 99 out of 100 have culled themselves as they either die outright in their first Z4 winter, or kill back to the ground or snow-line, eliminating them from consideration. So… he’s looking at 1% that are worthy, as 3-yr olds, of transplanting and growing out… and, theoretically, at least 50% of those will be non-fruiting males.
Taxonomically those two are quite far apart. The only tropical Diospyros in the same clade as the temperate species (lotus, kaki, virginiana) is one called D. glandulosa, a smallish pioneer tree in southeast Asia. It’s a diploid but is apparently a close relative of D. kaki, and the two have been hybridized in vitro with somatic hybridization. No idea if the resulting plantlets were viable. Malabar ebony is in a close clade, and judging by photos, is similar in leaf and fruit form to D. virginiana, it even has the similarly thin heartwood that makes D. virginiana a poor source of ebony. So, maybe, maybe a somatic hybrid could be doable. But honestly, crossing a tropical rainforest species with a temperate species is probably doomed to fail. Perhaps a species from a seasonally dry area so at least you get a matchup in hormones for dormancy? Long shot, but better than a rainforest species.
I think there’s a South African Diospyros that’s fairly hardy. I don’t know which clade that one’s in.
Texas persimmon is actually over in the same clade as Black Sapote iirc. But Texas persimmon isn’t especially hardy.
Overall, it doesn’t looks like a very promising avenue. But its entirely possible you were being humous anyway.)
Now, one cross that I suspect might be quite useful would be Dalbergia hupeana and D. sissoo. Hardy rosewood, anyone? Sissoo is very vigorous and has excellent timber almost on par with the more exotic rosewoods, is hardy to zone 9 and dry-season dormant. D. hupeana doesn’t develop much heartwood and so isn’t as fine a timber, but it is both closely related to Sissoo and is hardy to zone 6!
A similar cross that seems entirely possible would be between American Osage Orange and Argentine Osage Orange. The former is cold hardy, the latter is a fine timber tree that is tall, straight growing, and somehow even tougher and denser than our native Osage Orange. Better fruit quality to boot.
Age, and I suspect hormonal influence. American persimmon is a lot like sweetgum in that way–it has a nice heartwood, but good luck ever getting a tree big enough to have harvestable quantities of heartwood. Contrast that with another pioneer tree, black walnut, which does lay down useful amounts of heartwood. Maybe the easiest hardy ebony is actually just taking one of those nice and tall, straight growing 90-chromosome D. virginianas and upregulating its heartwood deposition rate with a few choice gene edits (and maybe something to induce sterility…).
That’s a really, really distant cross. It’s probably not possible to get viable, useful trees. It’d be way more realistic to splice some of the genes for fruit characteristics from one to the other (though, I can’t think of much reason to make nice Asian and American persimmons taste like arguably inferior black sapote).
2x D. glandulosa was crossed with 6x D. kaki with somatic fusion to give 8x hybrid cell back in the 90s.
I’d throw in dark flesh like some cultivars of kaki and like a handful of Americans. A bit of variety between paler yellow, dark orange, and black or even the bluish color in one or two American varieties, with likely associated differences in flavor, would be nice to have.
I mean, intentionally breeding a bit of small size into some lines might actually serve a niche. A persimmon that has the thin skin, flavor, sweetness, and hardiness of American persimmon, the small size, precociousness, and tough-as-nails nature as wild persimmons common in my area on excessively dry sites, and the non-astringency, seedlessness, parthenocarpy, and early ripening of Asian persimmons? Dude, seedless persimmon berries on shrubby plants? Absolutely something people would enjoy. I fully admit such a tree would probably take a hundred years to breed, lol.
Frozen fruit and berries have come a long way in terms of quality in recent years. While flash-freezing a whole honkin persimmon sounds like a tall order, it may not be that tricky with the right pre-chilling. Ice-glazing them would certainly be easier than glazing stuff like raspberries.
Frozen fruit seems to enjoy a fair amount of popularity with Latino Americans. Frozen guava, maracuja, etc. pulp are quite popular. I suspect it’s partly just a lack of good marketing that prevents more widespread consumer preference for frozen fruit like persimmon.
IDK. Looking at climate records, he gets 177 days/yr below freezing, 28 days per year with nighttime temps below Zero F. Not sure what his low temp is there.
@Lucky_P
The coldest ever at nearby Montpelier is “only” -34F (1981) which D.V. should be able to withstand (or a decent number should) although 1981 is probably before he started his project. Of course, Berlin, VT might be a bit different. Perhaps his growing season is so short that his seedlings don’t put on enough growth before winter. My runts seem less able to handle extremes.
I think a big part of it is getting seedlings to lignify in time for winter. A fully grown tree that hardens its wood before cold sets in is much hardier than a tree with lots of green wood.
I think thats what Buzz’s project is selecting for in a way. Seedlings that lignify in time, but also vigorous during the short growing season.
Looking forward to seeing how his seedlings turn out. Even if they all turn out to be males, they might be useful in breeding, or creating a more northern adapted rootstock.
Males with ancestry from trees with known fruit quality would be good to have. Using wild males for breeding would give you unpredictable results every time since you have no way of evaluating their fruit quality.
I think having a large size persimmon with American flavor would be nice selling point. I think people asked at some point “why would want bigger size. If itll go splat on the ground”…
Well, it would go along with an asian feature of picking unripe and ripen on the counter so wont fall to the ground if want to keep tree short and pick fruit with a fruit picker. Plus the animals don’t even have a chance to get since they hate my unripe asian fruit. And can be promoted for grocery store shipping for commercial aspects i would think.
I’ve been trying to properly germinate D. ebenum for a couple of years now. Have about 20 seeds on sphagnum moss right now that I hope will germinate and grow. I’ve had some start to germinate in the past but then quickly succumb to fungal infection. They have been frustratingly difficult to start from seed in my experience, even from multiple sources. The seeds deteriorate quickly if not constantly cleaned of mold every day. Probably doesn’t help that getting fresh seed is out of reach for me.
As you mentioned, I too read that it was hexaploid and thought to attempt a cross with D. virginiana. If I ever successfully get one to grow, I plan on having it tested to confirm as the literature on the subject wasn’t overwhelmingly persuasive. If a temperate zone hardy ebony source could be created, it could help stop the unsustainable harvesting of wild trees in its native environment as well as providing a revenue source for temperate zone farmers on marginal land.
I have experience making hand crosses with D. virginiana - bagging both male and female flowers and then brushing on hand collected pollen. I have some crosses of Ruby x Early Golden and Muscatatuck x Early Golden growing under lights now. Hope to use the “double mentoring” technique used to create Rosseyanka with D. ebenum if it is indeed a hexaploid, and I somehow figure out how to propagate it. Jerry Lehman wrote about the “double mentoring” from his visit to Ukraine; I think it was the NNGA Nutshell but can’t remember for certain.
Not sure if time will permit due to work and house remodeling this year, but I also want to try to force a female to male flower conversion on a D. virginiana cultivar to use as a female pollen source as happens naturally on my Early Golden. The genetic/epigenetic mechanism of sexual expression in diospyros is mediated by ethylene, so my hope is an ethylene antagonist like silver thiosulfate or cobalt chloride might artificially induce pollen generation.
The only non-EG related female to female cross of D. virginiana that I’m aware of was one where Miller was said to be the pollen donor. As far as I know that’s the only example where the known female pollen donor wasn’t an Early Golden kin. Don Compton posted it on Facebook some time ago. I think he named it Sugar Hill.
Some guys are into golf; somehow this stuff is my thing.
reminds me of the line from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”: Nicholson’s character is trying to get the ostensibly deaf Indian “Chief” to join his basketball team. “ Come on,” he says. “Its an old Indian game. Its called put the ball in the hole”
Golf is boring. Ill take persimmons any day. You know the Marines slogan- “the few, the proud”. Most people worth knowing are pretty quixotic IME.
Thank you for pointing me to this! I currently have specimens of black sapote and texana with the intention of eventually attempting controlled crosses. More than half of the tiny one year-old texana seedlings survived outdoors here, low of 14.7°F in January during an extended freeze. So definitely at least hardier than black sapote!
I do have some questions about the methodology in the paper you link, because the various different charts in that paper seem to move texana around quite a bit depending on which method was used, and nigra is only listed on one of the charts at all as far as I can tell (it’s possible I missed it?). They had two nigra accessions, so it’s kind of weird it wasn’t even listed in most of the charts.
Here are my annotated versions of the relevant parts of the charts, where green is nigra, red is texana, and blue are kaki/lotus/virginiana:
I know he’s stepped away for a bit, but the question of how trustworthy that paper is would be a good one for @Richard , who wrote his recent paper on this topic, but I was never able to get my head around Richard’s paper well enough to apply its findings when I look at something like that study.
In any case, nothing in the paper has scared me off from my texana/nigra hybridization plans. I don’t actually expect to succeed, but if they really are diploid from the same clade, it’s at least possible!
Oh and to the extent it’s a proxy for relatedness (I know, not necessarily), texana is graft compatible with virginiana, but Marta said she’d heard anecdotally that it was not compatible with lotus, and I will say my texana graft on lotus hasn’t budged yet.
I plan to attempt approach grafts of texana and nigra when my current batch of new nigra seedlings get a little bigger. I can already tell that stem thickness may be a challenge for graft compatibility, the taproots from nigra seeds are about five times greater diameter than the stems of some of second-leaf texana seedlings.
