Well Cliff got back to me on FB about Morris Burton #3 and I’m reporting it here so it exists in more places and we can all try to keep track of what is what. Cliff said that it is an open-pollinated seedling of Morris Burton. He had grown out several from David Lavergne and the others were male and this one was a good female. He says that it is actually a hybrid and that the parent was a Rossyanka male seedling. If it is open pollinated I’m not entirely sure how the parent could be known, but perhaps David was working on hybrids and the only male sources in his orchard were seedlings of Rossy.
Mine is grafted on a Prok that has shown signs of KSDS and killed Gora Roman Kosh, Sosnovskaya and Matsumoto Wase, but this MB3 seems to be doing okay. I’d assume the parentage would yield mostly Virginiana genetics, so perhaps it can survive on a KSDS infected tree.
Hopefully the fruit holds and I can report how big they get and how they taste.
David was in Louisiana, I believe, solidly in 60-chromosome native persimmon territory. So it is most likely that the only possible pollen parent (PPP) would be from male flowers in his orchard. If he was focused on hybrids, perhaps that is how he would know what male pollen could be around?
I have grown MB#3 at my old house on a multi seven varieties D.V tree. MB#3 fruit is quite small compared to Pork or H-120. Roundish orange color fruit. Flavor is like any of the brand name varieties but the fruit is too small for my liking.
Two questions, I guess: (1) Do we know that 60-C DV pollen won’t work on a 90-C x Kaki hybrid? (2) Do we know that Rossey male was the only male-flowering persimmon in David Lavergne’s orchard?
I think the odds are good on both counts. But I read a post a few days ago stating that 60-C and 90-C DV wlll readily pollinate each other. I know nothing myself.
ChatGPT (which searches this forum) says that there were other male-flowering descendants of Rosseyanka (e.g., 400-5) in the nursery, but that’s close enough for me.
The chromosome pairing of 60C X 90C would be pentaploid (5 sets of chromosomes) which would be incapable of normal meiosis/mitosis. It is remotely possible that a pentaploid cell could double producing a cell with 10 sets of chromosomes. This would be fertile but could only produce seed if pollinated by another decaploid persimmon. This is not too far reached as persimmon is known to produce occasional oddball chromosome counts.
So if wondering about 60 X 90 crosses, the female tree would set fruit, but seed could not form. it is the same principle as with seedless watermelons. A tetraploid crossed with a diploid produces a triploid which can make a fruit but can’t make seed.
Persimmons sometimes do very unusual things with their chromosomes so it is not possible to say that it can “never” happen. It would be more accurate to state that persimmons of different ploidy levels are generally not capable of producing seed. Even then, there are possible exceptions. Consider a 90 chromosome persimmon (hexaploid) which crosses with a diploid. The result would be a 60 chromosome tetraploid which possibly would be able to produce viable seed if pollinated by another tetraploid.
However, for practical purposes, 60C X 90C is not going to produce viable seed because the pachytene pairing stage of cell division would be totally disrupted by the odd number of sets of chromosomes. The emphasis is not that they can’t fertilize each other, rather that they can’t produce viable seed.
Okay. I have my mind clamped around that, and accept that. I live in a wilderness of 60C, probably. Kentucky. I purchase my grafted persimmons from my friend Cliff England. I understand his rootstock is 90C. So does that make my trees, either American hybrids or Kaki hybrids or kakis,that I purchased from him 90C? And if so, I have in my orchard a male 90 C, say Rossyanka . and I stratify and sprout seeds from say H63 A, can I say that the resulting persimmon is a H63 A cross with Rossyanka?
With some accuracy, you can state that any 90 chromosome tree that produces seed is doing so as a result of being fertilized by a 90 chromosome male. Bear in mind that persimmon sex differentiation can result in a normally female tree that sometimes produces male flowers.
One quibble, iirc, Rosseyanka is a known female. I think you are referring to Rosseyanka Male which is a male seedling.
Cliff England made some crosses by planting known males very close to known female trees. The resulting seed would overwhelmingly reflect the desired cross. You can do the same… with a caveat that this is only true if either a) there are no other persimmon trees nearby or b) the only persimmon trees nearby are the wrong ploidy level to produce seed with your female varieties.
Thanks. You’re clearing my thinking up a bit here. So lets proceed. I’ve grafted American Hybrids, Kaki hybrids and pure kaki’s to native seedlings (I’m assuming 60C) this year with great success. So this years class is 60C? And will cross with local wild Americans?
Note that the rootstock trees have a ~50% chance of being male. They will most likely throw up root suckers, which will also be male. So unless you remove the root suckers, very shortly you will have lots of 90 C DV males in the orchard.
Early Jewel = H-118 – Very Early, Large size fruit, Red colored fruit, Soft when Ripe very High-quality Fruit Precocious and a consistent producer bears seedless fruit south of the Ohio River due to it being a 90 Chromosome persimmon…
Cliff says that about H118.
I am several hundred miles south of the ohio… and my wild DVs are 60C. I have wild DV males here… several.
Hoping all these 90C females I have … Prok, Mohler, H118, H63A, Barbaras blush… produce seedless fruit.
That my 60C males cant pollinate them.
And also cant pollinate the hybrids I have growing… Nikitas gift, Kasandra, Mikkusu, Journey, Dar Sofiyivky.
Also sort of assuming my asians… IKKJiro, Cardinal, Saijo… should be seedless.
Hope so anyway… I have never had a seedless persimmon… other than a couple of store bought jiros.
I’m in central NC and assumed the wild D. virginiana trees in my area are 60 chromosome trees because the leaves look different from my grafted 90 chromosome trees. But my H63a and Barbara’s Blush trees have seeded fruit, so maybe I do have wild male 90 chromosome trees nearby as well.
All of my grafted 90C females… have thick large buds and thicker limb tip wood… makes very good scionwood (1/4 inch or so).
But all of my native 60C persimmons… the limb tip wood is thinner (1/8 inch or so) and the buds are smaller. Not so easy to find good scion wood on them.
Since I don’t think it’s been mentioned yet, Eliza Greenman did a presentation on persimmons for NAFEX or Savannah Institute, and part of the presentation talked about the two maps that supposedly track areas where 60 and 90 chromosome persimmons grow. Long story short, there was some lackluster data gathering to create the maps. This means that the overlap between 60 and 90 chromosome persimmons is likely far great than what is represented on the usual maps that get posted in these types of discussions. She was in the middle of trying to back that up by gathering her own data in a more thorough manner than had been previously done.
I write all this to say, it might be more complicated in real life when it comes to getting seeded or seedless fruit than what those maps show pertaining to chromosome count in certain areas.
Ahouse, there is some truth in that, but I live in an area where all wild persimmon trees are 60 chromosome. I’ve looked at persimmons all over the southern Tennessee and northern Alabama region and never seen a wild 90C.