Is a non-astringent American-Asian hybrid persimmon within reach?

Hi all,

Cliff asked me to let everyone know that he is no longer have the scionwoods for JBT-06.

Tony

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JT-02 x Soshu PCNA would be a better cross because Soshu is more early ripening?

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Most JPCNAs don’t produce male flowers. Taishu is an exception.

IDK about Soshu. But if it produces male flowers then yes, I’d agree.

Edit: I did a little research. p. 863 of the linked book says that Soshu has no male flowers. Judging from what happens to other PCNA cultivars, it might have a few under special circumstances. But not reliably.

(Fruit Breeding - Google Books)

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That would be a cool chicken breed!:baby_chick:

I spent 3-4 nights a week hanging out on Thayer Street in my younger years.

I audited many classes at Brown and at RISD, even stayed on and paid for credits in a few.

I went back 15 years ago and was dismayed what Thayer Street had become

Wish I had the land to plant out a few dozen seedlings of crosses. I can’t help but wonder if the whole process will eventually be shortened by genetic editing and splicing of the necessary genes into the genome of DV.

Scott

I just posted a persimmon breeding update with some urgency. Its a new thread:

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When is the best time doing field grafting for persimmon , and the best method is bark grafting?I am in zone 6a. persimmon tree are still in dormant. I have tried two years and all failed. Thanks Tony for the scions, they all took.

My understanding is that the scions should be dormant but the tree should be actively growing.

People agree that outdoor temperatures should be warm but there seems to be disagreement about how warm is warm enough. Here I’ve grafted in mid to late May, when trees are actively growing, daytime temps are 60-70s, and nighttime temps remain >50 F. I plan to do a few grafts next week.

I’m a novice but I’ve done a few dozen field grafts over the past 3 years (plus 15-20 bench grafts), including American, Asian, and Hybrid scions all on American rootstock. For field grafts, bark grafts seem the simplest, especially on thicker rootstock. But I’ve also had decent success with whip & tongue on thinner rootstock. On the other hand, I’ve never had a successful bud graft in maybe a dozen tries.

One caution: The persimmon tree seems to show strong favoritism to grafts in dominant positions. So when I grafted at two spots (e.g., two forks) on the same branch, the grafts in the more dominant position generally succeeded whereas the grafts in the more subordinate position generally failed. By the “more dominant” position I mean a thicker branch, farther out and/or higher up.

Also, be sure to remove any growth that the rootstock tree pushes out that may compete with the graft.

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Tony, Thank you so much for telling me so much detail !Now my persimmon are still in dormant, I did not cut scion yet, the weather here around 70s and night temp >50F, I may try grating now. may be next year I have to take scion wood early in March.

Thanks@jrd51, I will wait until the persimmon trees actively growing. you are in Zone 6b, I may save the scion woods now until June.

Just find out all three Asian persimmon trees dead to grafting unit. They are 5 yrs older trees. Have to look for Zone 6a suitable varieties.

I’d strongly recommend that you focus on (1) Asian-American hybrids, and (2) pure Americans. I don’t think there is a Kaki suitable for Z6A.

FWIW, my three mature Ichi Ki Kei Jiro appear to have been killed by the one very cold night we had (-7 F). I’m still hoping that latent buds may sprout from older wood.

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Booger. As has been discussed elsewhere, “hardiness” isn’t a fixed trait, but something that plays out accordingly to circumstance. Mild weather followed by a substantial cold snap is brutal. As Lee Reich likes to say (paraphrasing), “it’s not just how cold it gets that counts, but how it gets cold.”

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You may be interested to know that two 1st year Kaki trees – Saiyo and Sheng – grafted a year ago on DV seedling survived just fine in the ground protected by my usual fig cover. So did a purchased (2nd year?) Giboshi, also protected.

The implication is that the same methods used to protect in-ground figs can protect in-ground persimmons. Of course, we can’t prune persimmons the same so we’d need bigger covers.

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Was out grafting persimmons in the orchard yesterday.
NB-21(Sestronka), grafted about 5 ft up in an established seedling, shows pretty significant winter damage - whether from the 3 nights of single-digit subzero temps back in December, or a couple of nights into the low 20s/high teens in March(?). Each twig appears to have been killed back at least 6 inches to 1 ft.
Rosseyanka foliage is looking weird… pale, wispy… almost reminiscent of herbicide damage, but I’ve done no spraying, and I’m unaware that either neighbor(residential lots that back up to my orchard) in that vicinity has sprayed any herbicides.
JT-02, David’s Kandy Korn, and RosseyMale all appear unaffected, as do all the virginianas - except for some expected leaf burn from a 31 degree night about 2 weeks ago.

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I find my Rosseyanka has the same wispy herbicide damaged look this year, last year as well. I read somewhere last year this is a feature of this cultivar with early growth. Sure enough, she straightened herself out as the season progressed.

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Good to know…perhaps I’ve just not looked before, but this Rosseyanka tree was grafted around 1998, with scions from Jerry Lehman, and I don’t ever recall the foliage looking like this.

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Sorry to jump in. I had thought that the common Japanese persimmon only needs to become fully ripe to loose its astringency, whereas the mutant ‘non-astringent’ one is edible even when not fully ripe. Is that not so? I have eaten the older non-mutant types dry (which is the most common way to eat them I think) and also fresh. Personally I think I enjoyed them more than the non-astringent ones, though I never ate one of those when it was so ripe as the astringent ones are when eaten, nice and soft and juicy! The non-astringent ones I’ve tended to encounter when they are quite firm, somewhat (or sometimes too much) under-ripe.

For me the astringent type is also attractive since as well as being delicious when ripe; it can be used to make kakishibu, a very useful substance. I know in modern capitalist culture that probably has very little value, but I’d be surprised if it couldn’t get the permacuture and other such movements excited!

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@Justin – Where did I write this? It sounds like I was quoting someone else.

Anyway, I believe that you are basically right – the common Japanese persimmon (usually) only needs to become fully ripe. But two caveats: (1) As I understand it, some varieties and/or some growing conditions produce fruit that may have some residual astringency even when fully ripe. [That was true for my Kassandra hybrid last year – fruit could get squishy, gooey, rotten ripe and might still be astringent. I ended up giving all the fruit a “bath” in alcohol vapor.] And (2) “fully ripe” generally means gooey, squishy ripe – a texture that many people don’t like. So for some consumers, a fully ripe persimmon (like a fully ripe banana) is not a desirable option.

One practical problem is that fully ripe (gooey soft) persimmons won’t ship well. Growers who ship not-quite-ripe (inedible) fruit rely on the consumer to ripen the fruit, which is unreliable especially when the consumer doesn’t like gooey. Those consumers will eat still-astringent fruit, then never buy again.

To alleviate this shipping problem and to accommodate consumers who prefer a firmer fruit, many large commercial enterprises rely on artificial treatments, most commonly CO2.

You should try a non-astringent that is equally ripe, maybe then dehydrated somewhat. The fully ripe then partially dehydrated non-astringents that I ate last year were spectacular.

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If you use the up and down arrows on the top right side of my quote, you can see the context and the original comment.

Hmm yes, maybe so. Although I also wonder if consumers might be largely happy but transportation would be complicated. For example in modern tomatoes there has been breeding resulting in harder tomatoes that also store for longer before going bad, but taste much less good. Overall worse for the consumer but better for capitalism, hence they dominate the market. I don’t know how equivalent that is to the Japanese persimmon market but I at least really enjoy the older type. With tomatoes at least, this issue is avoided by buying tomatoes grown locally.

Oh and now that I read on, I see you also mention the shipping issue.

Yes I would not be surprised if I would also find them delicious. I just figured if I am to grow them myself, the older type would have that added benefit of being able to make kakishibu, which is a big bonus.