@alan asked that I bump this out to its own topic. So here’s what Jerry wrote me about some non-astringent American persimmons he has. I’d imagine Cliff England has these trees as well. I forwarded some cuttings to one person on this forum, but I’m not sure where else to get them. My plan is to use these in some of the hybrid American/kaki persimmon breeding I’m doing.
Here’s what Jerry said:
I made a trip over to the Claypool orchard to collect additional
varieties for you. So here is some information.
The one variety that’s involved in all of the 4 that of been identified
as having non-astringent characteristics is Morris Burton. There was a
doctor Sekar at UC Davis who was an expert in identifying kaki varieties
using electrophoresis. He wrote papers on the subject. In 1998 I had Dr.
Sakar do some work for me with the object to identify virginiana/kaki
hybrid’s and possible hybrids. As a basis in 1998 I did send him
actively growing buds of Morris Burton and other D. virginiana in order
that he could establish typical enzyme patterns for virginiana. In his
report back to me he stated that Morris Burton appears to share an
allele with kaki. I found that interesting and more interesting is that
Morris Burton is involved in all of the 4 varieties that were observed
to produce what Martha Davis and I call non-astringent fruit. That is
some of the fruits could be picked off the tree while still firm with no
astringency. Those 4 varieties were L-92, L-93, L-104 and L-104A. Morris
Burton is involved in all 4 of these. L-92 and L-93 are Szukis X F-100.
L-104 and L-104A are F-7 X Killen (using female pollen). Female pollen
is my way of identifying pollen from pistillate trees. Early Golden,
Garretson, Killen and Szukis will all occasionally put on male flowers
and in which case all the pollen grains contain only X chromosomes, none
contain O chromosomes which pollen from normal males contain 50% X and
50% O. All of the progeny using this female pollen are pistillate, none
staminate. Here are the varieties involved:
Morris Burton_Open pollinated virginiana discovered near Mitchell Indiana.
George_An open pollinated seedling of Garretson and is a grandson of
Early Golden.
F-7_Morris Burton X George
F-100_Morris Burton X George
L-92 and L-93_Szukis X F-100
L-104 and L-104A_F-7 X Killen.
If you’re going to do some breeding for non-astringent varieties I
believe you should include all of the Szukis X F-100 varieties that
Claypool made. He made only 4 each F-7 X Killen. Last week Doug Fell and
I drove over to the Claypool orchard which still exists and cut all the
scion wood that I could of those specimens and am ready to send them to
you.
I’ve had Morris Burton for about 6 years. A very fast growing tree, but super stingy with its fruit production. I’ve had yates for a year longer. It’s much slower growing, but always produces a good crop, and started at a young age.
Not that I know of. Cliff England of England’s Orchard and Nursery does custom grafting (and sells scion wood) and likely has this material, so he might be an option. I grafted mine to established branches on mature trees, so hopefully I’ll have a report at the end of this growing season.
Maybe there just wasn’t a lot of interest in the trees – could be the fruit isn’t high quality, could be people prefer Kaki regardless, could be that people often plant these to attract wildlife, could be that the trees get so tall that many people just wait for fruit to drop and so don’t mind that these particular ones loose astringency earlier. I’m not sure. The Claypool orchard released several varieties to One Green World that became named cultivars. So I’m not sure why these weren’t part of that release.
Here’s one of those that I got to fruit. It’s definitely got astringency when it’s hard. But I would say it loses its astringency more quickly and more completely than some other American persimmons do.
About Morris Burton, the late nurseryman John Brittain in KY (Nolin Nursery former owner and quite the American persimmon expert) told me that at first he thought Morris Burton was not worth growing, but in time became his favorite persimmon of all. He said the flavor is really fantastic, although the fruit is on the small side. I have it planted and can provide scionwood eventually, though not for a few years from now.
I’m going to bump this because i feel some of these varities are being overlooked. I was curious if there is a new breeding program of these that anyone is aware of. I suspect the crosses of L-92, L-93, L-104 and L-104A are not well understood by most persimmon growers.
I’m tryin to get some of the seeds up here in Niagara…I have some named american persimon seeds otw but haven’t landed any of these hybrids… just recently reached out to England’s to get some of their seed selections but haven’t heard back yet…hybrid breeding seems really difficult but I definitely want to give it at try…have a while to learn anyways plz hmu if you kno a link
A post similar to the OP appeared recently on FB. I’ll repeat my comment, more or less.
For starters, I’ll stipulate that I have no personal data on Morris Burton. I grafted it to an established DV a couple years ago. It has not yet fruited (which makes it less precocious than H63A, Barbra’s Blush, and H-118). Also, FWIW, a knowledgeable source told me recently that the “Morris Burton” in circulation is not the original Morris Burton but is in fact John Rick.
Continuing, I do grow H63A and I like it a lot. H63A is Morris Burton x Early Golden. So I’m interested in other crosses involving MB for the quality of the fruit. But it has nothing to do with astringency. H63A is not non-astringent.
To the main point, I can’t see why it matters that “Morris Burton appears to share an allele with kaki” assuming the statement is true. An allele is a version of a gene. Reportedly, the persimmon genome contains 25,000 - 30,000 genes. So what if DV and DK share one? They belong to the same genus and no doubt share a common ancestor. But nobody is saying that MB shares an allele specifically with a non-astringent kaki and, in particular, no one is saying that MB shares the specific allele that confers non-astringency. So what’s the point?
A final subtly: The Kaki allele that confers non-astringency is evidently recessive. Even if Morris Burton has exactly this allele (in at least triplicate), it would never produce non-astringent offspring unless the pollen donor also has the non-astringent allele. There is no known DV variety producing pollen that is suspected of harboring the non-astringent allele. So again, what’s the point?
Yeah, I posted this in the persimmon group on Facebook earlier today. I don’t have much additional information beyond what Jerry sent me and this Pomona article that says pretty much the same thing. But it seemed worth sharing for people to draw their own conclusions.
plz hmu if you kno a link 
