Re: [nafex] Yates persimmon update

Good Morning Lucky and Betsy,

There is no hard dividing line between the range of 60 and 90 chromosome
race of persimmon. I feel sure that North of the Ohio River you will
find some sixties and South you will find some nineties. And we are
finding that many of the 90 chromosome persimmons will set seedless
fruit without a 90 C pollinator. Also some varieties of the 90 C will
set some seedless fruit when there is ample 90 C pollen available.
Mohler seedless is an example of a variety setting many seedless fruits
in the presence of ample pollination. The Meader persimmon with 90 C
pollen available will set fully seeded fruit, with only 60 C pollen
available will set seedless fruit and if the flowers are bagged
preventing pollen from any plant reaching the pistols will not set fruit
at all. When this was discovered Prof. Meader questioned if chestnut
pollen could possibly be triggering the parthenocarpic characteristic of
the Meader persimmon because in his area his chestnut catkins dehist
pollen at the same time. I have 4 named pistillate varieties of 60 C
persimmon here with no 60 C males nearby. Three of the 4 drop may be 90%
of the fruit without ripening while the 4th, Cliff England's "SFES"
variety matures fruit with empty seed cases and occasionally a seed
without fully developed cotyledon flesh. Confusing? Oh, and hybridizing
the 60 C and 90 C theoretically is not possible because 15 chromosomes
remain unpaired.

Betsy, I believe the answer to your question regarding the Yates/Juhl
variety is the 1st 3 years no 90 chromosome pollen reached the tree so
it was seedless. The 4th year there was ample pollen available and it
basically set seeded fruit. The persimmon flower consists of 4 stigma
and style with 2 eggs at the base of each style providing for a possible
fully seeded fruit with 8 seeds and one pollen grain is required for
each seed. Therefore theoretically the number of seeds is heavily
dependent upon the amount of pollen that reaches the flower which can
vary year to year depending on weather conditions.

Early Golden will occasionally bear male flowers. I emphasize
occasionally. Mr. Claypool used to refer to them as the rare male
flower. I have early Golden, Killen, and Garretson, all 3 here, and only
once have ever seen male flowers on my Killen, never on early Golden nor
Garretson. But I confess I have not eagerly sought male flowers every
year. Back in the early nineties while Claypool was still actively
breeding using what I call female pollen I went over to observe and
learn his techniques. In one Killen tree was one current year growth
branch and one current year growth branch on early Golden with male
flowers and these were on trees that he was using ladders to get up to
the branches maybe 15 feet in the air. And these were the sum total of
sport branches on 2 very mature trees. In spite of some reports there is
nowhere near enough male flowers to pollinate a tree. Therefore I do not
believe that your pruning was the cause for sudden setting of nearly
seedless fruit. My thought is, some conditions such as whether reduced
the amount of pollen available to the flowers, reducing the seed count
from 6 to 1.

When Mr. Claypool found a sport bearing staminate flowers he would tie a
ribbon to it, marking it. The following year when that sport would
produce additional branches he would watch and if a branched produce
pistillate flowers he would cut that branch off. His attempts to produce
limbs bearing only male flowers naturally failed. He did have some small
branchlets with maybe 3 years growth producing only male flowers but it
was achieved by pruning not by natural selection. In other words the
sport that produced male flowers in 2nd year's growth would revert back
to pistillate flowers. They acted like a chimera, that is a mixture of
cells containing different chromosomes or different recombination of genes.

A side note of possible interest: Last spring Doug Fell found one small
8 inch branch on his early Golden with male flowers, the 1st he had ever
seen. The 1st one that I have seen in maybe 5 years. Doug cut it from
the tree and I made 4 Greenwood grafts of that piece and 3 were
successful. When they flower will they produce staminate flowers? That
remains to be seen but Mr. Claypool reported that when he and Prof. JC
McDaniel grafted limbs producing male flowers they reverted to producing
pistillate flowers. And yes when male flowers are produced on pistillate
trees they are single branches that I believe are sport limbs.

Jerry Lehman


On 9/20/2015 9:15 PM, Louis Pittman wrote:

I'm 'supposed' to be in 60-chromosome land, too... supposedly, the Ohio
River is the 'dividing line' between 90-C and 60-C, and I'm over 100 miles
south of the Ohio. All my 90-C females have produced mostly seeded fruit,
for years... some less seedy than others, and occasionally some seedless
fruit.
Yes, I have Garretson and Early Golden and some of the Claypools, so maybe
they're pushing male flowers, but I was getting seeded fruits when all I
had were a couple of non-EG heritage females.

Lucky

On Sun, Sep 20, 2015 at 1:47 PM, Elizabeth<ehilborn@mebtel.net> wrote:
>Hi folks,
>I previously posted in 2014 that I was perplexed why my 'Yates' persimmon
>contained seeds for the first time since I planted it. The tree has been
>bearing for about 4 years total. I live in an area with only 60 chromosome
>natives. There are no other 90 chromosome trees nearby (to my knowledge)
>except in my orchard. In 2014 these consisted of 3 selected varieties of
>grafted female kakis, 2 of which were old enough to bloom, and the Yates.
>
>Last year each Yates fruit contained 5 - 6 fully formed seeds. This year,
>they contain an average of about 1 seed per fruit. Most fruits are
>seedless, some have had up to 3 seeds per fruit.
>
>What has changed: I performed winter pruning this spring so it is possible
>that I pruned off a branch on a tree that had previously produced male
>flowers. I lost my Wase Fuyu during our unusually cold winter so it did not
>produce flowers this spring. The third kaki produced blooms for the first
>time in 2015.
>
>What I discovered: I evaluated each surviving persimmon tree for male
>flowers this spring. I detected none. Although I was looking for sports, so
>if I saw a branch covered with female flowers, I did not examine each
>flower on the branch, it is possible that I missed individual male flowers
>(if that occurs).
>
>I propagated every seed from the 2014 Yates crop. I guess I will find out
>what the 2014 pollinizer was in 8 years or so!
>
>Betsy Hilborn


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