Anyone familiar with these rare American persimmon cultivars?

14 years ago

Hi,

Is anyone familiar with the any of these rare American persimmon cultivars/selections:

1.Beaver(s)

2.Lena[Mitchellena]

3.Easy

4.Hicks

5.Dooly

6.Oreo

7.Slate

Some, such as Oreo, Dooley, Easy, Hicks, and I think Slate are accessible, it seems, only through Canadian nurseries; these are supposed to be extremely cold-hardy (ripen in zone 4b). Beaver and Lena were traditionally celebrated. If you know where I can get any of these, please let me know.

______

Secondly, the following list are other rare cultivars that seem to be available through England's Nursery & Orchard:

Raddle (formerly available)

Tatum (formerly available)

Valene Beauty

Rupp Korp

Brace

SFES

I wonder how well they hold up to the more well known cultivars, especially the widely appreciated ones, such as: the many Claypools, Osage, John Rick, Prok, Morris Burton, etc. I wonder if it's worth having these. The list on top makes sense for far northern growers, for instance. But I wonder what about these.

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Comments (8)

lucky_p
14 years ago
Steve,

SFES is mine; suspected to be a polygamodioecious male, but I can never remember to stop by the tree when it's in bloom. 80% of fruits are small - 1" seedless - 20% are average size for a native, and usually have a single seed.
Typical American persimmon flavor.

Rupp is from Harry Rupp, out of Beaumont, TX. Got mine from B.L. Childers, but it's not fruited for me - maybe this year; I haven't looked since bloom period. Fuzzy leaves/stems makes me wonder about its ancestry.

I got Valeene Beauty, Brace #1 & #2 from Don Compton at Marengo, IN. The IN folks I've talked to really like VB.
I got 'Tatum' from Clifford, but he told me that he didn't think it was correct.

Raddle - something's rattling around in the back of my mind, that it's the same as some other known cultivar - kinda like the Yates/Juhl thing. I just can't recall what the other, more well-known ID was/is.
njbiology
Original Author
14 years ago
Hey Lucky,

Very interesting - thanks!

-As for fuzzy leaves/stems (Rupp), I wonder if that's because its the southern sub-species, or maybe a D. virginiana x D. texana hybrid.

-So, SFES (your selection) was selected because it is a polygamodioecious male, not so much on taste one way or the other? In this case, it would be something along the lines of a Szukis or Claypool F-100, for those interested in a single tree producing both male flowers and female flowers (fruit)?

-I like the Raddle joke - sadly.

-I wonder why England's Orchard & Nursery carries a "Morris Burton #3" instead of labeling it plainly: "Morris Burton"; your mention of a distinction between Brace #1 & #2 (they have the later) leads me to believe that "Morris Burton" and "Morris Burton #3" are two separate cultivars?
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AC, Here are some more excellent varieties: Early Golden, Ruby, Celebrity U-20A, I-94, Contessa, Wonderful, Morris Burton#3, Lena, 100-46, F-25, H-118, H-120, and J-59. Good luck. Tony
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I tried Prok this season from a friends orchard and I wasn't impressed by the flavor as it lacked over all character and sweetness. However the texture was nice compared to some of the other american persimmons i've tried, as well as the size. It was definitely more firm than others. I have heard from some sources that Prok has some asian in it, but I don't know if this is true. Here is a picture of one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25212487@N04/6224647515/in/photostream I also tried a claypool selection from another friends farm and again, compared to some of the other persimmons I've tried(which I'll explain next), it lacked over all flavor complexity. However it was sweeter than Prok. Here is a picture of that...unfortunately I don't remember the cultivar name, probably because it consisted of a few numbers and was easy to forget. Anyways, it was a claypool selection: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25212487@N04/6271281968/in/photostream My best american persimmon experiences were all at Oikos Tree Crops in southwest, MI where I spent several months examining the american persimmons trees planted there. All of which are seedlings from good selections, i.e. yates, morris burton, etc. Ken Asmus has wonderful seedling planting with over 500 mature trees. There is incredible variation in fruit size, color, texture, flavor, and ripening time. Some don't even ripen in some years. We are working on developing a selection of cultivars from this planting that will be grafted and hopefully available in the nursery trade. These will be some of the northernmost american perisimmon selections, which is great for folks like me in MI where ripening can be a problem. One tree in particular was a seedling of Morris Burton and had AMAZINGLY delicious fruit with very high sugar content and a delectable flavor with butter scotchy notes..by far the sweetest I have ever tried. The flesh on this variety was a rich reddish color...very beautiful. Here is short video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iofe3u5pruY&list=UUsSu_6ip07ywsY37D35Cm8w&index=10&feature=plcp Out of the seedling population we also found a tree that produces blue skinned fruit. And not just a touch of blue but very blue! Here is a nice picture of it: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4083/5167939059_56e3a070e3_z.jpg If you're in Michigan or a similar climate where ripening can be an issue I would consider planting some seedlings from Oikos Tree Crops if you have the space. Sorry I don't have more info about specific cultivars, will have more to come. Cheers!
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As I do not get a lot of time to read all I would Like when I do I find some very interesting commits and I am thankful We do have many persimmons available this year and others we are sold out of but this coming season we will have a large selection to choose from as we will have some many root stock that it will take the majority of the farm trees scion wood to graft all the root stock we will have . Many new and exciting cultivars will be introduced and some for the first time cultivars such as Kasandra , Sistroyonka = big sister and a few that are so large and hardy that you would swear they are Kaki Last winter was a very hard one for us as the winter temps reach minus 23.4 Celsius or -11 degrees F and we lost 268 grafted Kaki trees there are some survivors like Korea Kaki, Inchon, Vaniglia, , CHinibel, Miss Kim, Shan Xi, Orest, and Chibacha that had not winter injury at all look forward to talking with all of you Cliff England
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It seems like the experiences of persimmon growers are not consistent, and mine will add more inconsistencies to the information. I live in East Tn., the native persimmon trees appear to be 60C. I have gotten fruit from at least 8 90C trees, and all are seedless. There have been a few exceptions, because I have a male hybrid at another location, and I have hand pollinated certain flowers to get hybrid seeds. The flowers that I do not pollinate all make seedless fruit. As for taste and size, mine are all seedless so I have no fruit on the same tree to compare either. I did get a few Yates that had one seed, from my hand pollination, but when I ate them I was not paying attention to the size or flavor. I also have a different view on the belief that a 60C male is required to produce a seedless 90C fruit. I have gotten seedless 90C fruit in the swampy areas of South Louisiana, where there are no wild persimmon growing. And the same for the Chestnut belief, there are no Chestnuts growing in the swamps. Kentucky State says that sometimes a 60 can produce a seeded 90, I have never had that happen, and Clifford England has never seen it either. About rootstocks, I have both 60 and 90, and am not sure if a 60 will add dwarfing characteristics. Male trees are more vigorous, so maybe a female as a rootstock would induce some dwarfing. I believe I was told by Jerry Lehman that if flowers are bagged, there will be no fruit to form. So it seems that in order to have a seedless fruit, a bee or some insect must visit the flower, and going by my experience, if 60C male pollen is not deposited by the bee, then what is happening? Benny I
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lucky_p
14 years ago
-So, SFES (your selection) was selected because it is a polygamodioecious male, not so much on taste one way or the other? In this case, it would be something along the lines of a Szukis or Claypool F-100?

Yes. I suspect that it's a fruiting 'male', but without viewing the flowers to see if it's producing both staminate & pistillate - or, possibly, some perfect flowers, I'm just guessing. Flavor is good; I'm not sure I can discern significant flavor differences among the 'good' native American persimmons I've ever sampled - I've tasted some real 'spitters', but most good ones are just...good.

Didn't know if anyone would catch the Raddle/rattle thing, and I didn't intentionally pun it in there, but noticed it right off, and left it.

Fuzzy Rupp, I'm not sure of its ancestry, and I think I've got some other varieties that are sort of fuzzy, too.
organic_mescalito
14 years ago
I was also looking for a hard to locate persimmon, I-94A from the Claypool breeding program. It is a Lena x Early Golden cross if I remember correctly, and has the overall highest quality rating of all the hybrids and parents in Claypool's collection. I'm surprised I haven't seen it offered somewhere. Maybe it was renamed? If anyone out there knows where to find this plant or can offer scion wood, I'd love to grow it.
creekweb
14 years ago
Mescalito,

I can get back to you regarding I-94A if you leave an email address.
chills71
14 years ago
Those cultivars you referenced are on his scion wood list, right?

Personally, I've had little luck with grafting (easy stuff, I've not tried persimmon) and was wondering if you were aware that you were looking at the scion list. Are persimmons easy (though I thought apples were easy....lol...I've had a couple that looked good, but the squirrels don't seem to want to leave well enough alone)

~Chills
lucky_p
14 years ago
Chills,
Persimmons are right up there with apples/pears(IMO) with regard to ease and success rate - with one caveat: Aftercare is MUCH more critical; you have to check, almost on a daily basis, to keep new shoots from the rootstock below the graft rubbed off - otherwise, they'll very rapidly overtake the graft, it will decline, and die off. Gotta maintain that diligence for several weeks - and it doesn't hurt to check 'em at least once a week or so for the entire first growing season.

I've done simple whip/splice grafts with good success, but almost exclusively do a simple bark graft(side veneer?) anymore - dormant-collected scionwood - and I prefer a 2 or 3-bud piece - on actively-growing seedling rootstock; I usually try to start grafting persimmons pretty soon after they start leafing out.
organic_mescalito
14 years ago
There is some good persimmon grafting info I've found here and on a google search. I'm excited to try it, it doesn't sound too difficult.

Hey creekweb, that would be fantastic! Here is my email address:
mescalito@operamail.com

Anyone familiar with these rare American persimmon cultivars?

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lucky_p

njbiology
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Anyone familiar with these rare American persimmon cultivars?

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lucky_p

njbiologyOriginal Author

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njbiology
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