Ploidy Level in American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) Cultivars

General Fruit Growing
#1

new link:

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#2

That is interesting to confirm that most cultivars are hexaploid. Unless I’m missing something, though, they don’t have anything to back up their assertion that the seedless fruits are poor quality. Also, I didn’t realize Cliff England gets in the research pubs!

#3

In my experience pollinated (seeded) D. lotus kaki have more flavor.

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#4

I’ve only had seeded D virginiana and both seeded and seedless D kaki. I didn’t notice any difference in the kaki (seeded and unseeded were from the same lot of the same variety). I’ve heard people come down on both sides for virginiana, and the goal seems to be seedless fruit. That being said, even if there is less flavor, that’s a long way off from poor eating quality. Re-reading the article, I do see now that they cite a source (McDaniel 1973b) stating that " that seedless fruits of American persimmon do not have as edible a quality because seeded fruits on the same clone and seedless clones are consistently inferior in sweetness to the best seeded cultivars." I’ll have to see if I can track the paper down to see their methods. I had thought they made the assertion without any real support, which was my real beef.

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#5

I don’t have much confidence in the accuracy of the map in the above article .
Specifically , they have me in the 90 chro. Area
I am not. Only 60s here.
Normally my grafted varietys ( 90 chro. ) are totally seedless .
Occasionally , may have one - 3 seeds., which I attribute to male flowers on the 90s. ( proximity to garretson has more seed)
Maybe I don’t have enough seeds to tell ?
But the flavor seems the same , seed or not in D. Virginiana.
I prefer no seeds

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#6

Citing only one article as support seems weak, and more anecdotal, although maybe there hasn’t been much research on that topic. It would be interesting to see an analysis of brix or otherwise for seeded vs seedless.

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#7

I agree. For me, though, it also depends on whether this is the result of some form of reproducible test, or from McDaniel’s personal assertion. I’ll have to see if my brother can get me a copy of the article from the university library. Sometimes I miss academia…

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#8

I just clicked on the above link and received “page not found.”

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#9

Thanks, link updated.

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#10

Thanks, interesting study, though perhaps based on some faulty premises.