Tony, is persimmon pollen produced in noticeable amounts? I used a very fine brush to go all the way into the male flowers, and it was hard to see any appreciable amount of pollen on the brush tip. This is different than other trees like pears, peaches, and pawpaws. I guess we’ll see if my hand pollination works in a few months, but the bumblebees really seemed to like persimmon blossoms, so no one will know what was responsible for any seeded fruit.
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I used the magnifying glass to see them. The pollens are very fine dust.
Luckily my chocolate Kaki persimmon only puts out female flowers this year. I will crossed them too with Jerry Lehman Nikita’s Gift offspring male here soon. I will let the winds crossed pollinating my 10 varieties Multi grafted American persimmon tree. Hopefully the offsprings will get the bigger fruits from the Nikita’s Gift Hybrid larger fruits size.
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Well that explains it! I wasn’t sure if the flowers were duds or I wasn’t collecting them at the right time to extract pollen. My Chocolate tree only produced female flowers too this year for some reason. Only Nishimura Wase, and Cheong Pyong had any noteworthy number of male blossoms. Kurogaki x Hokkaido had like 2 males so that barely counts towards anything other than knowing that it does produce males.
I hand pollinated as many kaki blossoms as time permitted to see if it helps with fruit drop. I also tried to make intentional crosses of JT-02 x Cheong Pyong and JT-02 x Nishimura Wase. Hopefully some fruit holds and is seeded. I’m hopeful of JT-02 x Nishimura Wase. This cross would have some potential for earlier ripening, large fruit that might be pollination variant. I’m not too sure of what to expect from Cheong Pyong. I heard it’s a cold hardier kaki so the hybrid would have more of that going for it, but probably less so than JT-02. Perhaps I could at least hope for larger fruit from the offspring.
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Did you grow out some of the Tam Kam seeds that I crossed with Chocolate male flowers. The offspring leaves is real round and pretty. I got about ten of them going on second leaf.
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Yes, I have some in pots right now! Maybe some will be males that can be used in more crosses. Ideally, they’d be male and female so we know what the fruit is like too!
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I saw a Don Compton post once that walked you through hand pollination. He showed a picture of a mirror that he tapped the male pollen onto.
You could see the pollen in the picture.
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Has anyone got flower buds on Chuchupaka yet?
Mine flowered last year but it was in August! I removed the flowers.
This year I see no flowers on any of my trees. Some branches are over 5 feet tall.
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Hey Tony,
Recently I was talking with KYnuttrees and MattR about some breeding ideas. It’s fascinating stuff.
I know you were doing a bunch with JT-02 there for awhile, but then we had a bad winter. How are your JT-02 trees doing? Are they still going strong?
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Out of 20 JT-02 2 survived the Polar Vortex of -31F. Just regraft 10 this spring and
Will bury the graft union 6 inches below ground for insurance of resprouting.
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Oh wow.
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Do those two have damage? Or are the survivors completely undamaged?
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Survived without any damage. I dugged and potted them up for my new place next March.
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Male flowers produce ample pollen. The best way to collect it is following:
Come to the tree early in the morning before the bees are busy. Collect open male flowers in a small dish. Insert flowers (one at the time) in a small eppendorf tube and tap gently many times over some solid surface. Repeat with all the flowers…very soon you will see a good amount of pollen at the bottom of the epp. tube. No need to use magnifying glass. Than you can use it to pollinate many flowers.
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This makes a lot of sense! Thanks Pavel. Maybe the bees took most of it already by the time I got to the flowers. They seem very popular with the bees here.
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How do I get these!!!
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On the blue persimmon with redish orange flesh:
What is the cultivar name & who provides it?
Thanks
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Here are the Jerry Lehman Nikita’s Gift offspring male crossed with Prok large fruited American persimmon. They are looking good on 2nd leaf.
Here are the Tam Kam nonastringent Asian persimmon crossed with Chocolate Asian persimmon.
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@Barkslip . Since Jerry Lehman sent Us the Nikita’s Gift male offspring. He said it was an OP. Does Jerry has any Rossyanya male on his property or only American persimmon male tree. I am trying to figure it out if the OP male pollen is a Hybrid or just an American male pollen. IF I know the answer then I can do the math for the Asian and American percent of these Prok crossed seedlings.
Tony
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Hi Tony:
Costata x Male= (Rosseyanka X Virginiana) Rossey Male hybrid
(it’s hardy to -22 F)
There are only (2) of the males that Cliff England is using and Jerry used. Both are the same crosses. One is -12 hardy and the other being -22 hardy.
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I hoped We got the -22F hardy. I just hoped these ProK crossed got some Asian parentage in them for larger fruits and hardy enough for Z5.
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