My americans are getting pollinated, but not the hybrids. As an after thought it could be the 60/90 chromosome thing. Maybe one does pollinate and not the other.
Have you cut open your NG drops at all? I did this year and found a few seeds in some of them and the only thing around that could be pollinating them is male D. Virginiana trees somewhere in the woods around here. The Bohzy Dar I tried had seeds as well, as did my Honan Red X Rossy Male (Cliff’s hybrid he calls Cardinal) fruit, although those weren’t fully formed.
I’ll be interested to see what I find in the Gora Goverla fruit when I open them, since they are a higher percentage kaki, which might make them less likely to be pollinated by Virginiana.
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NG when cut open had no signs of seeds and Rosy has never had them. I’m starting to think it may come down to the 60/90 chromosomes. Different areas have different ones and maybe one does pollinate them. I’m not getting seeds in mine and there are plenty of american males around. Even though I think they taste better with seeds I’d still rather not have them.
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Bohzy Dar is supposed to produce male and female flowers.
That may be the case - I’m not sure if the D.virginiana male in my yard is a 60 or 90 chromosome, but my Early Golden, H63A, and Barbra’s Blush persimmons all have seeds in their fruit just like the hybrids. I have a Myers Seedless that I suspect is a 60 chromosome variety based on how different its leaves are, but it hasn’t fruited yet. It’s possible we have both 60 and 90 chromosome trees in our local population of wild persimmons. Or maybe my Early Golden tree has some male flowers that I haven’t noticed and is pollinating the other 90 chromosome trees (including the hybrids).
My Nikita’s Gift tree succumbed to Kaki Sudden Death Syndrome last year, but it gave me a lot of fruit before it died. It would drop some fruit but no more than my kakis usually do. It tended to bear heavier crops in alternate years. I grew it in full sun all day long. Maybe the pollination helped it hold more fruit to full maturity. I found the taste to be more like a kaki than an american persimmon, but with an appealing firm texture and red flesh color. It definitely could never be mistaken for either and tasted very good.
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Yes, but I didn’t see any on the tree this year. It is just a tiny thing in a 4X9 treepot, so it is pretty easy to see any flowers and all I saw were the few female flowers that became fruit. So I don’t think it could have been a pollen source this year unless this variety also has any bisexual flowers and that’s what the two that became fruit were.
Bozhyi Dar will produce male, female and bisexual flowers.
Here is the typical fruit from bisexual (left) and female (right) flowers.
Female fruits are usually much larger but still quite small compared to the other hybrids.
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Thanks @Harbin I felt like I had seen that somewhere else and couldn’t find it again, so good to know Bozhyi Dar will make bisexual flowers as well as male and female. The two fruit I got from the small tree were both small and pointer like the one on the left in your picture, so it seems like that could have been a pollen source then.
Is there any difference in taste between the two types of fruit it produces? I imagine they would be the same, but maybe not.
As far as I know I have three: Universal, Bozhyi Dar and Transheyna.
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Given the genetic mechanism involved, about 2 or 3 percent of trees grown from seed should show both male and female flowers. Since persimmons are highly selected for producing female flowers, only a few available varieties will exhibit the trait for male flowers.
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Not a hybrid, but pharmerdrewee reported bisexual flowers as well as male and female on his Cheong Pyong Asian persimmon, and that it made two different types of fruit depending on the flower type.
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Almost all of the Hybrid persimmons got their leaves burned from the hard frost 2 weeks ago except for Nikita #4 crossed with Open pollinated took the hard frost like a champ.
Nikita #4 X OP.
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This is exciting news. My Tam Kam crossed with Chocolate that survived the -18F unprotected last winter took the hard frost just fine. Its leaves still green like nothing happened. If it can survived another -18F without protection then it will be the hardiest Astringent Kaki out there. Fingers crossed.
Tony
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Have you gotten fruit yet? Despite the fact that you crossed a non-astringent PCNA x a non-astringent PVNA, I think you’re right that the offspring will be astringent – PCA or possibly PVA. Have you gotten confirmation?
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Not yet. The seedling was potted the first year. Planted in ground 2023 and survived the -18F unprotected. This winter will be the second Winter in ground for further cold hardy testing.
Tony
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I’ve been experimenting with removing the astringency from some hybrids. I put 4 Gora Goverla and 1 Nikitas Gift, all fully colored but still hard, into a zip lock with a dish of gin 5 days ago (first pictures above a few posts). At 3 days I tried one Gora and it still had a fair bit of astringency, but not enough to keep me from eating it. At 4 days, I tried a second Gora and it still had some astringency, but not much. Today, the 5th day, I tried another one and it was fully non-astringent. I ate the last Gora in the bag and it was great as well. Then I tried Nikita and it was fully non-astringent as well, while still hard.
I was mostly interested in the Gora hybrids to use in this way as a replacement for kaki non-astringent varieties, since that meant they would still be astringent in the tree and mostly left alone by the squirrels. It worked just fine. Gora Goverla was very similar in taste to a kaki non-astringent when processed this way. The taste is as good, maybe a bit better, but the flesh is a little less dense and possibly drier. My Gora Roman Kosh died from Kaki sudden death syndrome before I got fruit, but I’ll need to try that one again since it is supposed to be tastier. Nikita was excellent.
This also makes me think of doing this to spread out the enjoyment of harvests when I finally wind up with a lot of fruit. I can have some early with the astringency removed, then enjoy the soft ripe ones and then finally enjoy ones I’ve dried. Months and months of persimmon goodness.
Gora on the right and Nikita on the left.
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Can you take these comments to the thread on removing astringency? There’re some apparently contradictory results there.
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I posted a note there with a link back to my post here.
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