" persimmon tree was named by Jerry Lehman after a visit to Dollywood in Tennessee. This tree produces large, flavorful persimmons that are 2.5 inches wide. It has a spreading growth habit and is grafted onto American persimmon rootstock "
You might wonder why was he in dollywood? He was visiting Bill Owens.
“This Persimmon tree was named by the Late Jerry Lehman while on a trip to visit Bill Owens in Dollywood Tenn. It produces large flavorful persimmon fruit 2.5 inches wide and has a spreading growth habit, making a large canopy with drooping branches. Heavy producer. Grafted onto American Persimmon rootstock.”
That is interesting if he found it in dollywood and it was a grafyed claypool variety. We need to update this thread and let @KYnuttrees Cliff know and many other persimmon experts so they update their descriptions. I could see how that could happen.
Dollywood=D128- This Persimmon tree was named by the Late Jerry Lehman while on a trip to visit Bill Owens in Dollywood Tenn. It has a most interesting growth habit (while producing large flavorful persimmon fruit of about 2.5 inches wide) it is a spreading tree while instead of growing upward it tends to spread outward from the trunk making a large canopy with drooping branches to include this growth habit with heavy production it is well worthy of having in the orchard. Limited numbers on hand.
No doubt you are right about D-128 and Claypool numbering.
Your other comment gave me a chuckle. I tend to believe that if you have the 1-2 American persimmon varieties that you really like, then nothing else is “well worth having.” It’s just vanity.
But on reflection, it occurred to me – when breeding, don’t we have only two choices: (1) pollinate using a dioecious male, probably wild; or (2) pollinate using monoecious male, probably (inevitably?) a descendant of EG.
So simplifying a bit, isn’t every product of modern breeding “just another EG offspring”?
I didn’t mean to seem dismissive of people’s talk about their experiences with the EG offspring. Plus, everyone’s taste buds and growing conditions can be a bit different. For example, we recently had a hard freeze that absolutely smoked the later varieties. Plus, some of the later varieties just don’t lose astringency as quickly here if it starts to cool down. Although it doesn’t bother me so much it does bother my wife. I tell her that she didn’t eat enough dirt growing up But, some varieties work great for me, and even if the taste is somewhat the same, other characteristics like “Doesn’t splat when hitting the ground” or “Hangs longer on the trees and turns to caramel” are considerations.
I’m just reading this thread. I guess the parentage makes sense why one of the names for H118 is Early Jewel. Maybe its like Juhl but earlier. I’ve never had or seen Juhl.
That’s a problem IMO because they all have pretty similar taste. As someone who was eating wilds before I started growing named varieties I can tell you there are more and better flavors to be had. Really sad EG seems to be the base of 95% of the commercial varieties. Thinking next year I may start searching for a high quality wild to spread. Most are filled with seeds, but there are some high quality ones out there.
it would be great if we could discover some dioecious males that confer good qualities on the fruit of their dioecious female offspring. Breeding with dioecious males needs to be less of a walk in the dark.
Western Ukraine. 5 zone. Of the American varieties of virginia persimmons, there is nothing good for food so far. NC-10 is the earliest to reach. The Meader variety in our conditions gives fruits of 15…20 grams.Among the seedlings, there are more winter-hardy ones with fruits of 30…40 (50) grams.
Volodymyr.
It looks like my old theory about ‘Szukis’ was partialy wrong. During scrolling in Facebook group I came up to an old comment of Donald Campton. He wrot that ‘Szukis’ is a chimera selected by John Gordon from John Talbott seeds. Basing on this knowledge and some of Campbell’s reports I guess ‘Szukis’ = ‘Beavers’ (only Talbot’s cultivar which shows dwarf seedlings) x EG male seedling.
I was just at the 2025 Northern Nut Grower’s Conference. They also include technical discussions on other tree crops, such as persimmons.
Kathleen, (@k-rho) gave a superb presentation about some of her persimmon research. Included in that is some preliminary results of DNA sequencing of many American persimmon cultivars. Thanks Kathleen for your work on this and sharing what you have learned so far!
*slide images removed per request. We look forward to a future published paper.
GIRL when you asked me if you could talk about this on social media I didn’t think you meant posting slides!!!
CAVEATS TO THESE RESULTS:
Obvs some of what I sequenced was mislabeled, Yates or Morris Burton being related to Early Golden is HIGHLY UNLIKELY
100% duplicates could be selfed progeny, I have more analyses to do on this so stay tuned
plan is for much more sequencing in the future, development of cost-effective markers so that nurseries and growers can get their trees tested to verify identity and/or pedigree
recordkeeping and data backup are very important!!!
Once the research is complete, will the results for all the samples/trees be made public?
Frankly, some results seem plausible to me (Szukis = EG x wild male, Prok = Pipher x Killen/EG/Garretson, Geneva Long = Penland x Killen/EG/Garretson) and others quite doubtful (Brittain’s Blue is supposedly a wild plant from Indiana, Shoto = Lambert as well, F-100 should be about 25% related to EG, Miller, and Golden Supreme… there are indeed mentions in the literature that there was some mixing of scions somewhere but they mention mixin Miller with Marion…). Looking at the results for the Claypool and Lehman varieties, it seems that instead of Miller, the pedigrees include Golden Supreme… which, along with Marion, is a derivative of EG.
The name ‘Miller’ is of irregular origin. A hundred years ago, it referred to a high quality
specimen (Griffith et al., 1982). In the same period, another cultivar named ‘Marion’ entered
circulation. The cultivar ‘Miller’ was somehow lost. To make matters worse, sellers began
offering ‘Marion’ as ‘Miller’. That practice continues today.
Maybe ‘Miller’ is not lost… As far as I know the true ‘Miller’ was secured by Fayette Etter so maybe it still alive in his orchard. Even if not, McDaniel mentioned in late 60’s that he planted this cultivar from Etter’s scions (it’s matched with the older descriptions). The question mark is the origin of Miller in Claypool’s orchard…
It’s D-128. The rest is internet babble spread far and wide.
Dollywood=D128- This Persimmon tree was named by the Late Jerry Lehman while on a trip to visit Bill Owens in Dollywood Tenn. It has a most interesting growth habit (while producing large flavorful persimmon fruit of about 2.5 inches wide) it is a spreading tree while instead of growing upward it tends to spread outward from the trunk making a large canopy with drooping branches to include this growth habit with heavy production it is well worthy of having in the orchard. Limited numbers on hand.