Can a male american persimmon flower polinate an Asian persimon female flower and the resulting fruit have seeds?
No, that generally doesn’t happen. I have plenty of pollen in my area from wild trees and all my American persimmons and most hybrids appear to be pollinated, but the Kaki remain seedless.
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Thanks. That is good to know. But the process can still happen sometimes, because I guess this is how hibrids were created.
Do you think the reverse process can happen, ie pollen from an Asian male flower pollinate a female flower of an American one?
Basically, kaki and American persimmons are too far apart genetically to naturally create hybrids. Only a couple of “original” hybrids have been created under very controlled circumstances and they are generally attributed to “embyro rescue” of only partially formed/matured seeds. I believe the only hybrids created this way were Rosseyanka and JT-02, although there might be others that never really got into circulation if they weren’t good enough or didn’t survive. Everything else comes from those, primarily from Rosseyanka at this point, with there now being 3rd and 4th (maybe even 5th) generation crosses from those.
Sometimes people will cross two hybrids, but often it seems we get crosses from a hybrid crossed to a kaki or American persimmon seeking to get the size of kaki or the taste of American. The ability to create viable seed varies by hybrid, often relating to how close the parent is in terms of kaki/American balance, so it is hard to get viable seed from a “mostly” kaki hybrid crossed with an American persimmon male for instance.
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Thank you so much for your answer! That certainly clears things up for me!