Prok and Yates American persimmons

I know we have male persimmons wild around hereā€¦ I donā€™t know if Prok will be seedless here or not (60 vs. 90 chromosome?). Does anyone know if Prok is seedless in Virginia?

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I partially answer my question with this excerpt from the University of Kentucky:
ā€œThere is a 90-chromosome American
persimmon that is native to the northern U.S. and
a 60-chromosome type that is native to Kentucky
and the southern U.S. Most of the named
varieties are of the 90-chromosome type. When
named varieties of the 90-chromosome type are
grown in Kentucky and are pollinated by the
60-chromosome type the seeds abort and many
of the fruit are seedless or have
few seeds. A few American
persimmons, such as ā€˜Meader,ā€™
are self-fruitful and will set
seedless fruitā€

We should only have 60 chromosome trees here, so Prok should be seedless!

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Wishful thinking, Iā€™m afraid. Meader is fully seeded for me here in zone 7 North Carolina, for example. A friend nearby with Yates, Ruby, and Early Goldenā€¦ all his trees are fully seeded. I canā€™t explain why, but there seems to be more than enough anecdotal evidence to disprove the theory.

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They say Early Golden and its descendents typically have a few male flowers which cause the seeds. My grafts of Yates and Meader took this year and Iā€™m hoping they will be seedless. As usual Mother Nature may be laughing at me and making other plans.

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That might explain the seeded fruit of the friend with the Early Golden, but it wouldnā€™t explain my fully seeded Meader fruit, which for the last ~5 years until this year has been the only grafted native persimmon Iā€™ve had flower. I believe Lucky in southern Kentucky has also said that every persimmon heā€™s grafted has been fully seeded. Anyone else in the South on this forum fruited any of the common selected native persimmon cultivars? It would be great if there were real hope, but Iā€™m extremely skeptical.

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Conventional wisdom says that the Ohio River is more or less the ā€˜dividing lineā€™ between the 60 and 90-chromosome races. Iā€™m well south of the Ohioā€¦ more or less right on the KY/TN lineā€¦ so, all the natives in this area should be 60sā€¦ Iā€™ve not grafted any male 90-chromosome cultivars, but all my 90-C females have seedsā€¦ some years fully seeded, some years less than others.
Iā€™m through worrying about it. They all taste goodā€¦ and I canā€™t say that I can discern any significant difference in flavor between D.v. cultivarsā€¦ though some, like Keener (alleged by some to be a hybrid, but I think not) have more ā€˜fiberā€™ in them than others.

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Prok finally ripen and starting to drop fruits. 9-21-17. Zone 5. If you want to plant it. Prok and H-118 are the top dog of the American Persimmon.

Tony

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Tony, how close together are your persimmons planted? Do you keep them short?

I planted them at 8 feet apart. I pruned them to 10 feet tall and let them spread 8 feet wide.

Tony

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So far Prok has been seedless here in North Ga. but only had a couple fruits ripen

IMG_3767
IMG_3770
IMG_3764

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Phil,

Mine had 3 seeds or so in each fruit. The pollinators could be from the Meader or Early Golden families. Do you like the taste?

Tony

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It was very good. my favorite American I have tasted. Thin skin and clear rich flesh. I have lots of wild male American around but most everything I have that I Imagine are 90 Chromsome that might possibly pollinate like a Yates/Juhl right beside it and Meader and Early Golden somewhat close are young not much flower yet and not sure which might have any male flower.

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@cousinfloyd I recently attended the 2017 NAFEX/NNGA annual meeting. Jerry Lehman basically said during his presentation that Meader is worthless and full of seeds. I know that doesnā€™t really answer your question. Also, I do have Prok and Yates, but no fruit yet. It appears these more northern cultivars grow extremely slowly down here in zone 8. Also, the leaves are riddled with dark brown blotching, I read something about this in a pomona article. I may be able to locate it. The hybrids are very vigorous for me.

Also, Jerry did mention something about part of a ā€œfemaleā€ tree developing male flowers. I need to look at my notes, if I took any.

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Donā€™t know if this qualifies as an answer but ā€˜Szukisā€™ is hermaphrodite.

Dax

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These Prok fruits are perfectly riped and the skin cracked. They are delicious.

Tony

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Fantastic.

Tomorrow I will visit Jerry Lehman.

Dax

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does Lehman work with Asian-American hybrids? If you think of it, can you ask him his opinion of the best ā€œAsian persimmon-flavoredā€ hardy hybrids, released or even just in pipeline?

I have a few things Iā€™m going to try nursing along a few years, and perhaps growing Tony-in-Omaha-style, but I assume Lehman might have some inside infoā€¦

He likes a lot, ā€˜Rosseyankaā€™ and ā€˜Nikitaā€™s Giftā€™. Iā€™m sure others will come up tomorrow and Iā€™ll have my ears wide open.

Dax

He brought the JT-02 from Japan to Terre H. Indiana. I think he got something else from Ukraine Botanical gardens.

Tony

Tony et al,
My friend gave me his persimmons today. They are only2" or less wide. I think they are A persimmon. He did not know the variety. They were perfumed and sweet. Seedless.

Spoke too soon. Some had seeds, small, thin seeds that I could easily chewed.

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