I asked ChatGPT if wild 90 chromosome trees are parthenocarpic (which is a different question than whether they are dioecious). Answer below.
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Probably yes, but the evidence is not strong enough to conclude that most wild 90-chromosome American persimmons are parthenocarpic.
There is an important distinction between wild seedlings and selected cultivars.
Named 90-chromosome cultivars: Most are reported to produce fruit without fertilization.
Wild 90-chromosome females: Parthenocarpy occurs naturally, but its prevalence and reliability have not been adequately quantified.
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I thought the reason is that there are few monoecious varieties, other than EG and descendants.
A monoecious variety such as EG has huge advantages in breeding ā it produces both fruit and male flowers, so we can select a pollen donor with known fruiting characteristics. Ditto all of its monoecious descendants. So basically (to my knowledge) every named variety that was the result of breeding ā rather than just a named wild variety ā has EG ancestry on the male side.
I donāt see any reason to assume that a monoecious variety such as EG will tend to be parthenocarpic. FWIW, evidence from Hybrid persimmons indicates that a dioecious variety is not necessarily parthenocarpic. For example, Nikitaās Gift is parthenocarpic; Chuchupaka is not.
The paper notes that Virginiana are naturally dioecious and female trees require cross pollination to set and hold fruit. When they sampled 60 fruits from wild trees in Kentucky, 58 had seeds and only 2 were seedless, demonstrating that wild trees rely on pollination and fertilisation to produce fruit.
I mean asking ai is fascinating and all but the only way you can really tell is going out and seeing non cultivar trees. My neighbors tree has some seedless fruits and isnt a cultivar. The wild ones near me were seedless as well but im not entirely sure if theyre wild American or dead rootstock and are actually lotus (it was in a former estate from the early 1900s, never lived in) Was raining crazy when I found them and they werenāt ripe
Thatās true some are monoecious, but that also gives you seeds and is not desirable (only good for breeding). The male flowers are also not consistent. Itās the parthenocarpy trait that is desired in the named varieties. Thatās also hard to find and left breeders mostly stuck with EG.
In more recent years other parthenocarpic varieties have been found. It would be nice if some breeding were done with them to get away from all that EG incest. Maybe some different flavors as well.
On that AI crap I learned you have to ask the same question from several different angles to get a quality answer out of it. Unless your asking whatās 2+2.
I guess Iād like to see more investigation and comment on the parthenocarpy of wild 90 chromosome varieties. Among named wild varieties, I know that Early Golden is not unique. For example, I know that Morris Burton is parthenocarpic because I grow it. I believe that other parthenocarpic examples include Mohler, Juhl / Yates, and Josephine. All of these were used by Claypool to produces modern crosses (e.g., H63A = Morris Burton x Early Golden), but parthenocarpy was a trait already exhibited by the female.
Agreed. And where the AI is acting as a powerful search engine, I just check the sources. In this case, I take comfort from the fact that the data (especially re Valeene Beauty) come from the Kentucky Extension school.
From the ancestry map it looks like there is a total of 10 parthenocarpic varieties in ācirculationā that are unrelated to EG. There are others, just not really in circulation. The breeders used mostly MB, Yates, and Miller all crossed with EG when they created all those varieties. For some reason I seem to have overlooked that they used two parthenocarpic varieties to pass the trait. Didnāt mean to give any appearance that EG was the only one in existance though.
My question is why did they not cross the other varieties instead of continuously going back to EG. Parthenocarpic persimmon are rare, so I understand why so few varieties were used in breeding, but what was so special about EG that every known cross is related to EG.
Harvesting first ever Saijos off my 3-year-old tree. These are the first very ripe astringent Asians (unpollinated) Iāve ever tasted and I love them. Iāve had a decent number of local wild and Deer Candy American persimmons which I do like and have a slightly more complex flavor, but the sweetness, seedlessness, and incredible texture of Saijos make them the best persimmons Iāve ever tasted.
Iām also a fan of non-astringents like IKKJ and my friendās pollinated Coffee Cake, but honestly Iām very much considering skipping the pollination via grafting a Chocolate to one of my trees. I havenāt noticed much improvement in flavor with pollination and dealing with seeds really does suck a little more than I anticipated; that being said Iām still learning what I like most in persimmons with different varieties, pollination variables, and degrees of ripeness. Another observation with personal preference is that I like them either pretty hard (NA) or super gloppy - I donāt think I like them as much kind of semi-soft in the middle.
As I noted earlier, I think it relates to EGās status as monoecious. It produces both fruit and pollen!
Iām inferring this based on my attempt to empathize with the breeder:
The breeder has a wide selection of 90 chromosome dioecious females. Moreover, he knows the characteristics of their fruit ā size, taste, texture, astringency, etc. So he picks one, say Morris Burton.
Now he needs a male / pollinator. He has a wide selection of dioecious males. BUT!!! he does not know the characteristics of the fruit that would be produced by seedlings from these males ā breeding with a dioecious male is a total crapshoot. On the other hand, he is aware of a monoecious variety ā one that produces both female and male flowers, i.e., Early Golden. On this variety, the male flowers can provide pollen, and the females flowers can provide fruit. He can see roughly what the fruit of the descendants of Early Golden should taste like. Luckily, the fruit is pretty good so he uses Early Golden as a pollen source. The result of the cross is a number of dioecious females (e.g., H-63A) that produce superior fruit. So the strategy works.
Later, other crosses of other wild dioecious females with either Early Golden or monoecious descendants of Early Golden also produce superior fruit. For example, Juhl x George results in H-118 and H-120. These crosses take advantage of the fact that the monoecious trait is passed to some offspring. And while the selection of monoecious varieties among these descendants conserves the monoecious trait, the other traits of Early Golden are gradually diluted. So even though all of these monoecious names are descendants of Early Golden, the proportion of the EG genome contained declines to 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etc. . . .
Notice that I never mentioned parthenocarpy. Itās a nice trait to have, but it isnāt the main reason for using EG and its descendants for pollen.
I agree with much of what you stated, but the problem is MB and others are also monoecious. So that doesnāt explain the EG infatuation. They could have bred any of those monoecious varieties (ex. MB x Juhl), but instead they always used EG or itās offspring. More remote thoughts are. Maybe they did breed those other monoecious varieties together and they just didnāt make the cut. Or maybe they just thought EG was the best in the world and only wanted to use it.
I disagree on breeding for parthenocarpy. No one wants seeded fruits. I donāt think we are going to solve the parthenocarpy/monoecious mysteries without access to the breeders themselves. Although we do have Lee Reich on the forum. Wonder what info he could provide.
Not so, at least not reliably enough to observe here, as I have observed male flowers on varieties such as Tashu, Chocolate, Coffee Cake. I grow and fruit Morris Burton and it produces only female flowers and seedless fruit. Moreover I see no evidence that it is āself-fertile.ā I think the author is confused.
Lehman discusses Morris Burton extensively as a breeding parent but does not include it among those producing male flowers. This is particularly noteworthy given his extensive work with Morris Burton genetics. >>
As far as Iām aware, I donāt think any of the persimmon breeding did any breeding in areas that didnāt have wild males to even know if they had parthencarpic plants.
<< Morris Burton was one of James Claypoolās favorite persimmons. He used in a lot of crosses but always as the female. He was keen to notice male sports as he used them in his crosses. As far as I know, the only useable male flowers he ever observed on females were in the Early Golden clan. >>
The first fruit was large and somewhat conical. Thought it looked like Hachiya too. The others are smaller and still a little bit conical but closer to standard tubular Saijo, right? Got it from Just Fruits and Exotics so def trust the source.
There are other sources saying MB does produce some male flowers. Here is one of them. Could be it does just not reliably or often. I got it from NCSU so they are the one confused. I just assumed the college would offer correct information.
I wish. Further to the argument, look carefully at the linked page and attached video:
Yes, the description of Morris Burton says that it āproduces some male flowers.ā But the attached video below re DV trees generally says that they are dioecious (i.e., separate male and female trees). A contradiction.
Throughout, the website makes statements like this: āIt is partially self-fertile as it produces some male flowersā and āOnly one tree is needed as it is self-pollinating.ā But producing male flowers, even if true, does not mean that a variety is self-fertile. The term self-fertile means not only that a tree produces pollen but also that the pollen will produce visible seeds. So the author s sloppy with language.
I didnāt watch the video, but in their defense the video title is talking about wild persimmon. Not a contradiction, but like you said maybe sloppy putting that there,. They are just saying that wild persimmon are generally dioecious and need a male pollinator. Thatās what I said that started the whole conversation.
As far as you are right and the college is wrong about MB, I canāt prove it either way.
