Breeding persimmons

Won’t the black sapote scion be killed when the Texas persimmon goes into dormancy though?

I don’t remember where I first saw that they were in the same clade, it wasn’t this particular paper though. There are a pretty decent number of papers on Diospyrus, I’ll try to sit down when I have a moment and see if the ones that mention those two mostly agree or not. It’s such a freaking huge genus…

If you do end up failing, then I’ll add it to the list of crazy somatic crosses to try once I’m old and rich. ; )

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Texas persimmon is evergreen. I’m also only doing the graft compatibility test as a data point. I’ll also have nigra on nigra roots in the greenhouse. I believe black sapote has an evergreen “dormancy” just like texana when it’s grown in California, where there’s no new growth for a bit in winter.

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Here is an episode of Weird Fruit Explorer where he tries a wild persimmon in Thailand. Diosypros malabarica also known as Gaub. Looks very similar to an American persimmon, but tastes like Fruity Pebbles.

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Barnie, my pebbles!

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Have you trialed dusting with cinnamon or other antimicrobial strategies?

@swincher
What B. Turner et al. report as clades are divisions made by a pair grouping algorithm (Camin J.H. and Sokal R.R., 1965) of differences in chemical reaction product sizes.

These kinds of studies are questionable because the specimens are never sequenced. Sure, they are called genomic because chain reactions are forced upon the chromosomes, but the chromosomes are not sequenced. Therefore, labeling the data clusters as genetic clades is a very far stretch.

Further, the data analysis methods in the paper are faulty. Pair grouping is based on an erroneous theory of species and cultivar bifurcation. Bayesian clustering has been proven to increase errors in data extrapolation. Both of these (and other problematic stat methods) are in the free-ware software used in academic horticulture and thus prone to mis-use.

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Thank you!

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I probably brought this up before … there are two western hemisphere species called Black Sapote:
Diospyros digyna
Diospyros revoluta

The fruit of the latter is a deadly poison.

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Nice suggestion. I’ll try that next time. Right now I’m using sphagnum moss - the whole plant stuff used in reptile terrariums, not that nasty, ground up, hydrophobic dust powder they sell in the garden section. Working so far, although haven’t seen any signs of germination yet. This batch of seeds was pretty dried out, so not holding my breath.

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Don’t knock the dust powder. It’s probably the easiest, most effective way to prevent mold in seeds that you’re trying to keep moist short of fungicides. Coir is a pretty close second. You’ll find cinnamon wildly ineffective.

And to clarify, it’s not ground up sphagnum. It’s the peat that naturally forms and builds up in sphagnum bogs as old plants die and fail to decompose. It’s probably over harvested, but it’s an undeniably useful material when used properly.


Oh I’m familiar with the good stuff. I use the bagged stuff too, it’s great for potted figs.

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After an intense study of American persimmon cultivar ancestries, I’ve come up with this list of candidates that are free of Early Golden ancestors.

Which ones of these have been observed to produce male flowers?

CULTIVAR PLOIDY FLOWERS
Craggs hexaploid tbd
Golden Supreme hexaploid monoecious?
Juhl hexaploid female?
Miller hexaploid female?
Morris Burton hexaploid female?
Pipher hexaploid female?
Wabash hexaploid female?
Ennis tetraploid tbd
Gehron tetraploid tbd
Penland tetraploid tbd
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Are these all varieties discovered in the wild?

I suppose we should acknowledge the possibility that there may be EG ancestry in some wild varieties, especially in Illinois where EG was discovered. Or in some seedling varieties that were open-pollinated with an EG tree in the vicinity. I’m not saying that any of these names fall into those categories, but. it would be “known EG ancestors.”

Is the interest academic or pragmatic? If not just academic, then I don’t get why we would want to segregate or avoid EG ancestry.

For breeding purposes, it seems really helpful to have a variety that produces both fruit and pollen. [It gives us some information about how the male / pollen donor will influence the fruit of its offspring. The dioecious male is a black box.] So I understand the interest in discovering a variety (other than Early Golden and its descendants) that produces both fruit and male flowers.

But if Early Golden (and its descendants) are the only variety on Earth that provides both fruit and male flowers, would that be so bad? Early Golden has been crossed with dozens of dioecious females. Breeders have identified the seedlings that also produce both fruit and pollen, accumulating these trees as a population for further breeding. Across generations, the percentage of EG DNA in the seedlings would have diminished so EG ancestry would become almost irrelevant, right? Useful mutations / variations have to start somewhere – maybe only once so far.

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Yes, please see the figure in the referenced study.

This is why I termed them candidates.

In the course of the ancestry study, several GrowingFruit members expressed interest in EG-free cultivars. Additionally, J. Gordon and other authors discuss the topic in publications, e.g. here.

Yeah, the question was implicitly addressed to the community. Sorry if not clear.