JT-02 is supposed to be extremely hardy but you had severe damage. Similarly, I had nearly complete die-back of the branches on a small 2-yr old tree but the central leader survived. I have to attribute the damage to the mild January followed by -7 F in early Feb. JT-02 seems to leave dormancy and break bud earlier than DV varieties, so maybe that makes it especially vulnerable to warm-cold cycles in winter.
I have no evident damage on a mature Kassandra, though all the shoots that bore fruit last year died. I think that’s just SOP.
I also have no evident damage on 4 DV varieties – Prok, Barbra’s Blush, H63A, Dollywood.
My one unprotected Asian variety – IKKJ – suffered severe damage and all three trees appeared dead but they have sprouted from old wood.
Zone 6a/6b with winter low at -9F - I have JT-02, 100-46, Barbara’s Blush, Prok, John Rick, Morris Burton, Zima Khurma, Deer Magnet, and a variety called Big DV that I don’t have much information on (I’d love to hear more about it if you do). All varieties were grafted last year or the year before to rootstock obtained last year or that I planted in 2019. I had no damage on any except two Morris Burton grafts died back to the roots. It could have been a coincidence or the variety though. I can keep a closer eye on JT-02 and 100-46 based on where I planted them. They both seemed to leaf out near the same time. 100-46 wants to be very precocious (flowered the year I grafted and again this year on multiple trees).
Somebody should do some genetic testing on these supposed hybrids. I bet $100 that there’re no kaki genes.
You’re referring to the reported crosses of Morris Burton x Hokkaido. I’ll be $100 that the supposed hybrids contain no Kaki genes. We need some genetic testing.
To my knowledge, the only well-documented (and publicly released) direct crosses of DV x DK are Rossyanka and JT-02. Anything else is wishful thinking.
Some are big persimmons , if not from Kaki where would the large size come from? Are there some Improved Americans that are very large through selective breeding? It takes many years to develop fruit. My small crabapple took about 15 years to determine it was a good apple and not just a decent apple. There are many good rejects. One of my apples was good but died of fireblight the 2nd or 3rd year producing. Any apple can get fireblight but it is not right to not properly test stuff for at least 5 years. @Lucky_P and other fruit pioneers in NAFEX as i noted above were growing some of these persimmon nearly 20 years ago and discussing them at that time. Rushing these fruits to market is not the way to improve things. We do need some genetic testing done and slow painful trial and error. My goal was never to sell the clarks crabapple it was to strictly make the world a better place. I will never except money from the apple project because that was never my goal. Persimmons need someone similarly motivated. We need 100 of us to start doing the hard work of large scale breeding to improve the persimmons. It is a big commitment to devote a couple of acres to grow out thousands of seedling persimmons for 10+ years. In the past Tony and I have experimented with grafting mulberry, che etc.Che, mulberry, osage orange, fig grafting. He is like me dedicated to pushing the limits of what we do. In my retirement hopefully i will have plenty of time to do things to improve the world for those coming after us.
Joe, I know that you have a (purported?) hybrid, Kasandra as well DV and kaki varieties. Do you not see kaki traits or intermediate traits (between virginiana and kaki) in your Kasandra fruit? Curious if you have any good photos that might get at the relative similarities or differences. My list of Kaki traits would include thick skin, a large calyx, large fruit size, less distinctive flavor (since virginiana flavor is unique and fairly consistent across cultivars), and perhaps flattened fruit form (I know that many kakis don’t have this form, but most do in my limited experience. Also some virginiana do have this form, like Mohler, but not many IME). I’m curious to hear you speak to your direct observations.
Also, I’m not genetics whiz, but I think there has been discussion in the past about the relative merits of different types of genetic testing. There seems to be a lot of garbage out there. What @Richard is looking at is purely ploidy, if I’m understanding correctly, and this should be reliable and indicative. Other interpolations of heritability based on markers and such may be less so. Others could speak to this with more depth, but I’ve been struck by the absurdity of genetic test results for friends dogs, for example, I.e. along the lines of a small lap dog being identified as part mastiff. It’s pretty common, it seems. The human testing that is now popular is even worse in some ways since it conflates so many aspects of our intermixing over the millennia. Our categories for ourselves are just not that accurate or sophisticated at the end of the day. They always go back to some aspect of identity, like language, common religion, nation-hood, tribe, etc. Think of even the relatively recent genesis of “English”-ness. You see the mixing of so many different streams- germanic, celtic, Roman- each with their own unique synergies. If gets messy quick.
@clarkinks
So far I’ve seen 3 partially divergent goals in recent D. virginiana breeding: cold hardiness, fruit size, and fruit quality. In my opinion it is an error for breeding programs to focus on one in spite of the others.
With regards to genomic testing: the polyploid nature of persimmons creates difficult problems which science does not yet have a solution for. There are some published results available but these are wishful thinking at best and par for the course in horticultural science.
Kassandra is a reported cross of the hybrid Rossyanka with the Kaki variety Great Wall. I have no reason to doubt the report – Rossyanka seems to cross relatively easily with Kakis.
[My skepticism about England’s 40+ “hybrids” is all about the fact that it was so easy. The two documented F-1 hybrids (Rossyanka and JT-02/Mikkusu) required strenuous effort. Also, the inferred Kaki parent of all of England’s “hybrids” is a mysterious variety named Hokkaido, which almost nobody else owns.]
Kassandra is a little bigger than the typical American variety (maybe 30% bigger than Prok). Generally a little redder too. Skin is thicker than on my Prok (American). The calyx is large and unlike my Prok the fruit does not separate at the calyx even when very ripe – to pick it you have to cut the stem.
Kassandra also responds to ethanol treatment to remove astringency, which no one has reported for Americans.
Here’s a picture of Kassandra. I picked >1000 of these last year so no doubt I have other pictures if you want to see more. @RedSun has also posted very similar pictures.
I also managed to ripen one JT-02 / Mikkusu last year. It is a cross of the DV variety Josephine x the Asian PCNA variety Taishu. JT-02 looks different than Kassandra – like a smaller version of a PCNA Kaki, so it’s flatter than the DV fruit.
FYI Asians and northern DVs share the same ploidy. That’s not to deny Richard’s point, which I think relates to the sheer number of chromosomes.
These all sound like affirmations of interspecific hybrid status, no? That calyx, for example, is HUGE, and very uncharacteristic of any virginiana I’ve ever seen. I understand your circumstantial reasoning around the logistics. I’ve wondered at some of this too, but the proof is in the persimmon pudding, no?
I neglected to complete the full train of though, leaving it for inference, but yes the common ploidy between virginiana and kaki would preclude such a test being useful. Instead, I’d think you’d need to look at mitochondrial DNA or other markers that would/could be inferred to designate a common ancestor.
Yes, these traits all appear to be confirmation that Kassandra is a hybrid. I have no doubt about that. But note that Kassandra was not the product of a direct cross of DV x DK. It was a cross of DK (Great Wall) x the existing hybrid (F2 Rossyanka male).
The most difficult step in the hybridization process (and subsequent breeding) is the creation of an initial F1 interspecific (DV x DK) cross. As I said, this has been reliably reported only twice – Rosseyanka and JT-02. The vast majority of reported hybrids (including Kassdandra) are descendants of Rossyanka; a few are descendants of JT-02. Except for Cliff’s “hybrids.”
The issue I raise above relates solely to Cliff England’s 40+ (!!!) reported hybrids of various DV names x the supposed Kaki variety Hokkaido. I don’t believe that those can be true F1 interspecific (DV x DK) hybrids. I’ve discussed this ad nauseam in the thread where Richard develops his list of hybrids in the U.S. As circumstantial evidence, it is true that in the past Cliff has described a persimmon variety in his catalogue as a hybrid when it demonstrably is not. But mainly I’m skeptical that Cliff could produce 40+ hybrids within 3-4 years in his outdoor nursery when the rest of the world in half a century or so, much of it in various breeding facilities and laboratories, has produced just two.
At this point interspecifics are more a discussion for the kaki x american persimmon thread more than this one. It is a very interesting topic but i don’t want to take this discussion to far off track. Wish there was an easy test to eliminate them from american persimmon breeding.
Where other than the list @Richard has compiled can we read about any of these F-1’s? Are these among those crossed by David LaVergne? Does anyone here know much about David (I understand he passed away some time ago) or the nature of his work, specialty, or methods? I don’t understand the logistics of embryo rescue, but there definitely are folks who employ impressive lab quality methods at a home scale. I’m thinking particularly of the field of mycology, but surely there are others in which the economics are not really there and so the small player has some opportunity to make some substantial contribution to the body of knowledge.
