Here’s a link in Japanese that talks about it. 鶴の子柿 つるのこがき：旬の果物百科
It seems the one in Japan is smaller and not PVNA.
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The rest of the world refers to it as “Chocolate” in their language.
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I guess “Crane Egg” isn’t as appealing of a food item.
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Remember that bag of “Chocolate” persimmons from CA that was posted awhile back? I wonder …
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I don’t actually care whether Chocolate produces fruit. I bought it to pollinate my other PVNAs – Nishimurawase (potted) and Giboshi (planted in the ground). Also, I’m OK with seeded Kasandra and I’m curious to try more seeded JT-02.
I just have to keep it away from my PCNA Kakis – IKKJ, Taishu, Cardinal – and probably also my PCAs – Saiyo, Sheng and Miss Kim.
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Just for clarity, which Chocolate is this? I assume the U.S. male-flowering one?
Does this variety have a Japanese name?
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I’m confused. See p. 364. Here’s an old discussion of Tsurunoko from Japan with a picture of both female and male flowers.
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“this grafted Chocolate Persimmon sapling grown by Dave Wilson.”
The original Tsurunoko is documented as pistillate-constant with no stamens.
The discussion of Tsurunoko above is from 1915. How much more original can we get?
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https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Tsurunoko+pistillate-constant&btnG=
https://calag.ucanr.edu/archive/?type=pdf&article=ca.v042n04p7
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@Richard – So isn’t this what lawyers would call hear-say? Your source in California reports that unnamed sources report that Tsurunoko is pistillate-constant. But there is no reference. There is no direct testimony. Seriously, is this what you consider “documented”???
Also, how could this be “the original Tsurunoko” in 1988 when Tsurunoko was discussed as bearing both male and female flowers by a Japanese author in 1915?
Yasui-StudiesDiospyrosKaki-1915.pdf (1.1 MB)
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The link I posted describes a different persimmon than what we call Chocolate.
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you’re welcome.
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Looks like others got to it first, but regardless,
- Meader
- Large-fruited Virginia
- Sosnovskaya (Sosnovska in the image which is in Ukrainian, but I’m guessing the Russian form is what is most common in English. It’s a last name and a toponym, derived from the word for pine. )
- Chuchupaka
- Sofiyivka’s gift (Or Sofiyivsky’s gift. Same translation issue as Nikita’s gift, so a similar English translation would Sophie’s gift, which I guess is fine. Sofiyivsky and Nikitsky are place names, not people’s names, which would be more like Dar Sophii and Dar Nikiti, but the usual English translation drops that for simplicity’s sake. I suspect most people here know these are named after botanic gardens anyway.)
- Rosseyanka (Again, Rosiyanka in the image, but the common English transliteration is in the Russian form. The word means “Russian woman”)
- God’s gift
- Nikitska Burgundy (Could be translated as Nikita’s burgundy, but same translation issue as above, and in this case, Nikitska might be in the adjectival form rather than genitive i.e. possessive form, though I’m not sure if this is the case as the difference isn’t as clearly marked in Ukrainian as it is in Russian and Surzhyk AFAIK. I am also a bit unsure about which gender Burgundy is in.)
- Mount Goverla (Or Mount Hoverla. Tallest mountain in Ukraine.)
- Hyakume
- Rojo Brillante
- Xachiya
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After a lot of searching, I think it’s safe to say:
- The Japanese Kaki variety Tsurunoko is widely identified in the U.S. as Chocolate.
- Many varieties are described, here and abroad, as “Chocolate” or “chocolate” but are not Tsurunoko. “Chocolate” is a great descriptor for any persimmon with dark flesh and especially dark skin.
The only testimony I could find asserting that Tsurunoko is pistillate-constant is Richard’s California source from 1988. I have no idea what their claim was based on. The U Chicago publication form 1915 shows Tsurunoko with both male and female flowers.
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Id certainly claim no authority but Im generally skeptical of any claim regarding sex of persimmon cultivars, since it seems at least in some cases to be a mutable trait. Someone can maybe chime in but I recall much discussion in the past around Szukis, for example. I recall a Jeremy Lehman talk (NAFEX maybe) where he expounded on some of his observations. As I recall, he (and perhaps others) noted that branches bearing male flowers would continue to do so when grafted, behaving somewhat like a sport. Just this past year, I received scionwood from Buzz Ferver for “male Szukis”. People talk about polygamodioecy, though like PVNA, et all Im not sure there is neat genetic analog to this trait. I would have to assume similar things would be at play with sex expression as astringency, with different combinations of alleles leading to various sex expressions. I looked up at one point what genes control sex expression in flowering plants. I forget the specifics offhand, but there are several mechanisms at play, and multiple “sexes” rather than simply two, even in diploid species. Extrapolating M and F to a hexaploid flowering plant seems pretty presumptuous.
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Mulberry and persimmon are among those species known to have mutable sex expression. And they both have uncommonly high ploidy.
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Perhaps this question has been answered already, but can persimmon seeds be feminized using hormones or colloidal silver? It is quite common when breeding hops and medicinal cannabis. Persimmons produce flowers from new growth, so it may be possible to force male flowers on a female tree if it responds to the chemicals. Has anybody tried this?
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Hi, I stumbled upon your old message saying you grafted Dar Sofiyivki. Are you still growing it? If so, would you be able to sell me a scion? If not, would you know of anyone who might have one? (I checked with Cliff England, he won’t have any this year, and Fusion_power had a few but I missed out.) Thanks!
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