North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Jwlehman@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/12/2004 9:54:34 AM US Eastern Standard Time, Katherine.Russell@oberlin.edu writes:

> If you have a female tree, and you graft some male to it, does the male 
> part "remember" its identity? Or does it pick up some cue from the tree 
> it is in and become female, or sterile, or perhaps not take at all?    KR 

 

Hello KR,

Typically what you graft is what you get, withstanding some understock influence, but a male understock will not cause a female scion to change sexuality and visa versa. 

With the exception of Szukis, the sexual _expression_ will not change when grafted although there have been unsubstantiated reports of switching. I've had no reports of Claypool's F-100 switching.  It remains a male with some perfect flowers that bear small fruits.   

The Early Golden and Killen will occasionally bear male flowers and with pruning an entire (generally small) limb can be developed with all male flowers. But as Ron Rombough wrote when a scion from that limb is grafted to another understock it again bears female flowers then when it ages, getting larger, it will again occasionally put on male flowers. I've never seen enough male flowers even on Claypool's large Early Golden and Killen trees to make it self pollinating, simply not enough staminate flowers. You have to look hard to find the occasional staminate flower. 

In another post someone noted high bee activity on staminate flowers. The reason is without the bees female trees would bear very very little if any fruit. Persimmon need a carrier of pollen. They are not air pollinated, their flowers generally hang upside down.  

Yes, both male and female scions can be grafted to the same understock thereby producing a self pollinating tree. This is not necessarly true if using Szukis. You will need to watch and in case one is more vigorous than the other prune it to prevent self pruning of the less vigorous graft. The best is two trees, one grafted to each. 

Jerry Lehman