You mean the D. virginiana-kaki interspecies hybrids, not the D. kaki intraspecies hybrids.
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He was also mainly interested in fruit suited for pulp production, not fresh eating. Iāve not eaten a ton of different varieties, perhaps 15 or so over the years. My impression, and this seems to be a commonly held view, is that the range of flavor is not as dramatic as in many other fruits. Most have a dominant rum butterscotch kind of flavor, and theyāre high flavor ones seem to be imbued with some sort of non-descript āfruitinessā. I also had ones that have more of a creamy flavor. It seems like on the whole, most of the āimprovementā of these named varieties has been in size and lack of astringency.
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Found this on Englands Orchard siteā¦
Mohler- Medium size fruit, upright with spreading growth habits. Ripens early August through early September. Fruit is exceptionally sweet with complex fruity flavors. Considered to be one of the best tasting legacy cultivars still on the market.
Journey is a Hybrid 12.5 % Kaki F-4 cross of ( Rossey X Great wall ) X ( H-118 Early Jewel X OP) = no Male flowers has a taste of Vanilla, is excellent and begins to ripen before all the persimmons that we have planted, It has one flaw that I am not excited about, the production is so heavy that the limbs dangle with the weight of the fruit bending downward. First of the season to fruit then followed by J-59 and Prok.
I have lots of wild DV rootstockā¦ may just add both of those if I can get scions.
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Prairie Sun has done really well for me, along with Ruby. Both great flavor and produce young. Prairie Star, dawn, meader, and prok have not produced yet for me. It looks like meader may this year. The others were only planted last year.
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I have fruiting:
Early Golden
G-44
I-94
H-118
Muscatatuck
Prok
Pipher
Ruby
Miller
L89
L-128A
Knightsville
100-47
A-118
Golden Supreme
C-110
Meyers Seedless
Young grafts:
Bald Eagle
Florence
Mohler
K-43A
Krimson King
Goliath
Shoto
Yardley Taylor (fasciated fruit)
Current scions/brand new grafts (donāt know whether they will take):
Cataract
L-32
Lena
Halloween
Zombie
Wolverine (black persimmon)
Marion
Kinnewa
Union Star
U-20A
Madison (Golden Gem?)
B-56
I-66
Garretson x Garretson cross
Killen x Killen cross
Garretson x Early Golden
J-5
Also, grafted some Lehman and Claypool males
This morning I bagged some male flowers on my Early Golden and some female flowers on my Knightsville and Muscatatuck. Hope to cross this week if flower timings cooperate.
Not interested in kaki or hybrids. D. virginiana improvement has barely scratched the F2 generation. It is plenty capable of improvement in its own right.
Hope my inbred accession grafts are successful. Want to outcross them to see what happens.
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Are any of the better D. virginiana cultivars smaller in stature ā at least for a persimmon?
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Huh? Tell us more. Iāve seen fasciated stems and they are bizarre. I canāt imagine what that looks like.
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@Richard ā¦ on the englands orchard siteā¦ some of his descriptions mentions size detailsā¦ examples below. Nuttrees.net
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100-46 - Lehmanās Delight From the Breeding work of Jerry Lehman of Terra Haute Indiana, one of his newest creations. Very large fruit, smooth flesh, clear pulp, and made to be loved. While not a large tree it is one of the heaviest producing persimmon I have ever witnessed. With very good flavor and smooth flesh, this fruit is all about taste.
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Jennyās Early is Pure American = produces a large fruit sweet early, productive and very precocious. Is a smallish tree. No pollinators needed; will set fruit without a male but this tree is not as vigorous growing as others. Noted because it may require improved planting site**.**
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Szukis is quite dwarf in stature, with an almost downward hanging habit. Very low vigor, and very precocious. I donāt know Brix, but Itās also quite sweet compared to others Iāve tasted
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Wow, you have quite the collection. Sounds like youāre doing some righteous breeding work too. It does seem thereās lots of room for improvement still. Itās the case, as I understand it, that Jim Claypoolās breeding work was based almost entirely around crosses involving Early Golden. Of these, a number were self pollinated seedlings I believe. If someone know more about the specifics, please chime in.
These are the varieties Iām growing:
Fruiting:
Prok
Yates
Szukis
Mohler
MacKenzie Corner
Flowering, but setting male flowers only:
Geneva Long (purported, but suspect)
Well established grafts:
Early Jewel - I.e. H-118, I.e. Prairie Star
Dollywood
Mikkusu / JT-02 (hybrid)
Kasandra (hybrid)
Rosseyanka (hybrid)
Buzzās Favorite
Downingtown Middle
Younger whip grafts (last year):
H-63A
Britain Blue
DEC King Crimson
DEC Goliath
DEC Money Maker
DEC Large Morris Burton
Fruit Dump
Downingtown South
100-43
Journey (hybrid)
Bozhyj Dar (hybrid) winterkilled? late graft
Dar Sofiyevki (hybrid) winterkilled? late graft
Adding this year (havenāt grafted yet):
I-94 Valene Beauty
DEC Earliest (not sure itās been named)
Davidās Kandy (hybrid)
Chuchupaka (hybrid)
Sosnovskaya (hybrid)
Kujinaja
Blitsnetsnaja (spelling may be off on these two)
Iām not doing any breeding per se beyond casual seed saving, which has plenty of potential too, Iād imagine. Mainly Iām interested in growing these and evaluating them. Oh, and I almost forgot about eating them!
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I got deer candy. The hybrid JT-02 didnāt make it through the winter here in zone 6. Purchased both from @Hillbillyhort at the Ohio paw paw festival
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If my Journey sizes up enough, Iāll be glad to send you both
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https://growingfruit.org/t/whos-growing-improved-american-persimmons-suggestions-welcome/54573/Hello TNHunter,
I have a bunch of Journey scion wood in the fridge right now if you would like some. I used a stick for grafting last week. Just let me know the next step to get you some if you would like some for grafting this year.
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I am growing persimmon here in western Maine zone 4b. Meader, Prok, Szukis, 100-46, Early Golden and some seedlings. All the named varieties are fruiting for a few years now, and a couple years ago when my seedlings matured some males added their pollen to the mix so I get seeds too. Iām interested in the earliest varieties, so Mohler and Journey sound very intriguing!
Last fall I visited some of John Herseyās historic plantings in Downington and collected a bunch of seed from a purported Early Golden, it was late November and most had dropped from some trees, others were still incredibly loaded.
My son and I sure ate a few that day!
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@Nuttywon ā¦ thanks for the offerā¦ but i have already grafted all the rootstocks that i had prepped for this spring. 7 of thoseā¦ The only rootstocks i have left now are the ones that just came up this springā¦ they will need to grow a season to be readyā¦ next spring they will be 4-5 ft tall and half inch diameter.
I will be looking for more persimmon scions this winter and may have some to trade myself.
@hobilus ā¦ appreciate the offer for scionsā¦ i will check with you late winter early spring on those. Thanks
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Very nice collection. Maybe we can trade some stuff next year. The one I called Yardley Taylor fasciated was purchased from Perfect Circle Farm (my favorite tree nursery along with Englandās) as (DT Middle fasciated) which I think is the one Eliza Greenman rediscovered in the yard of a man named Yardley Taylor that she called megacalyx on account of it having a weird mutation that causes it to fruit on a fusion of 5 or 6 calyxes. I need to clarify identity on this one so I wouldnāt use my presumed knowledge of it as definitive reference.
The inbreds I grafted all came from whatās left of James Claypoolās orchard. Made a trip over there this winter. Iām hoping some of the males I got from his and Jerry Lehmanās orchard take this year as I really want to do F2 type crosses rather than just replicating his work with other varieties. My rootstock is sub par so not holding my breath on takes yet. Started growing out my own to select for the vigorous ones but thatāll take a while to ramp up.
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I texted with Buzz at Perfect Circle about it. Weāre acquainted, and have traded material over the years. Heās not aware of any persimmon with that description. He says that Downingtown Middle (which I have) makes some fasciated branches but when grafted they produce normal trees. This would comport with my limited experience with fasciation, namely the fantail or dragon willow. It makes bizarre curled fasciated branches once mature enough, but when these fasciated branches are rooted, they produce only normal looking growth. It is only the terminal branches that get fasciated, and they are sort of dead ends in that they seldom grow much but rather tend to die and new growth is initiated further up the stem on the unfasciated portions. The multiple calyx thing does sound cool though. I know that Eliza was on this forum a bit and may still be a member, but my impression reading her posts was that she wasnāt planning to be very active here, if at all. It would be interesting to get the real skinny sometime though.
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Iād like to see Buzz obtain ploidy assays for his mulberries. I believe they are all alba, rubra, and interbreeds.
The fasciated willow I mentioned, incidentally is Salix udensis āSekkaā. Itās pretty cool and bizarre. This is a fasciated stem I cut to show a friend this spring, all dried up nowā¦
Itād be interesting to see the fasciation noted on these couple of persimmon varieties, though Iād guess youād need to grow them to good size before itās become apparent.
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Thanks for the info! I guess Iāll have to try to trade with Eliza to get that mega calyx one. That one sounded really interesting when she mentioned it in an email.