Interesting. By the way, do you have several of them that are fully seeded but don’t show the dark color?
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Is there any hint of Taishu (male parent of Jt-02) having PV tendencies?
I know that Fuyu can be PVNA-ish (darker flesh) if seeded. I seem to recall that Taishu has some Fuyu ancestry . . .
p.s. I’m renewing my suggestion that we backcross JT-02 x Taishu. My previous rationale was that if we can get a cross with 6 NA alleles, then we’d have a hardy PCNA hybrid. But if a cross with 4-5 NA alleles (i.e., still astringent) has some PVNA tendency, then it may develop dark flesh and lose astringency early if seeded. It would be a de facto hardy PVNA hybrid.
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There has been some dark flesh around the seeds of 2 fruit I’ve tried this year out of 3. The third one only had 1 seed and no dark flesh around it.
I actually did try to research that last year, but could not find any literature describing the trait in Taishu.
One of my pollinizers is PVNA but it did not recreate this effect in all the kaki it pollinated.
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In other threads, I posed the question whether the male parent could influence the expression of the PVNA trait. People responded as if I am crazy. But my rationale is that the seeds, which control expression of the PVNA trait, are produced by both the male and female. So maybe the pollinator matters. And so maybe the PVNA trait is more likely to be expressed in JT-02 if there is a PVNA pollinator. Other PCNAs will no PVNA tendency might not be capable of responding to PVNA seeds.
Last year I bought Chocolate and Coffee Cake, which I’m growing in pots, just to experiment with PVNA persimmons. I’d be VERY happy to use them to pollinate JT-02 if the result is early loss of astringency and dark-fleshed fruit.
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I was actually hoping to get something PVNA with more cold hardiness by pollinating JT-02 with Nishimura Wase and growing out the seeds. The seeds were not viable last year, so let’s see how things go this time around.
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Well, I hope that works! We’d still end up with an early loss of astringency, but with seeds in a dark-fleshed fruit. I’d gladly take that result. I suppose the trick would be finding the seedlings that combine the best cold-hardiness with the strongest PVNA phenotype.
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The shriveled seeds last year concerned me that perhaps Nishimura Wase pollen is not compatible with JT-02 for producing viable offspring. I’ve since added Maru which is also PVNA and has staminate flowers. I think I’d prefer the former cross to work though. Nishimura Wase ripens so early, has fruit 3-4 times the size of JT-02, and as few as 3 well placed seeds are enough to completely remove astringency from my fruit.
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None of my Maru pollinated JT02 last year germinated as well.
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Thank you for sharing your observations! Did you notice black flesh in your pollinated fruit? @ramv
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Another JT-02 has softened and there is much less dark flesh in this one. It only had 2 seeds though whereas my previous example had 4.
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Yeah but this is “the exception that proves the rule.” You have PVNA behavior close to the seeds, which is what a PVNA should do.
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Do any of your fruit show this behavior when seeded?
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Andrew,
So the flavor of the darker flesh JT-02 tasted better than the one with some dark flesh just around the 2 seeds one?
Tony
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The black fleshed one tasted more interesting for sure, but I’m undecided for now. They’re all softening so maybe I’l have a better idea in a few days.
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I’m still wondering if mine is just an oddball or if others are observing this too. Surely, I’m not the only one who has fruited seedy JT-02. Walter brought up a good point about perhaps a certain limb is bearing these fruit. I need to sacrifice some hard ones next year when I pick them to further my observations.
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And hopefully you figure out a tell for when they’re pollinated!
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I’d need to find a more effective pollinizer as well if I can in fact get PVNA fruit from it. Most of mine aren’t fully seeded despite being 12 feet away from a heavily staminate kaki with a matching bloom time. My female kaki much farther away have plenty of seeds on the other hand. These wrinkly seeds in my JT-02 concern me that they’re not viable.
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I posted some photos last year (I think) of my Maru pollinated jt02. I am having a hard time finding it. I wonder if it had dark areas around the seeds.
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IF a specific limb is making this happen and in fact is producing PVNA fruit, I’d imagine it would be considered a sport at that point which should be further propagated?
Maybe all JT-02s will do this with enough pollination?
Is it a ‘normal’ thing for known PVNA fruiting persimmons to lose astringency with minimal pollination or do they typically need fruit fully seeded to lose astringency?
I can’t hope to accurately explain the implications of a variety which throws sports exhibiting variations in pollination tendencies, but maybe if it truly is happening someone else is able to make sense of it.
I’ll be over here quietly observing until my trees grow…
(questions directed generally, not specifically at @PharmerDrewee)
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In Maru (California, not Zenji), at least in my experience, if only one or two seeds developed, the sector of pulp around those seeds will be brown and nonastringent, while the rest of the fruit remains orange and astringent. Makes every fruit a bit of a lottery.
That said, some of the orange pulp near the brown areas will be nonastringent or nearly so. Maru is fairly large, so a partial pollination results in a fruit that is partially astringent. In a smaller fruit like Chocolate or JT-02 the effect might be able to extend through the entire fruit.
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