North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Jwlehman@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/12/2007 10:17:01 AM Eastern Standard Time, lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu writes:

> I've been growing it for nearly 10 years - it was one of the very 
> first persimmons I ever grafted (got my scions from JHG) - and while 
> it does have big, glossy leaves, there's nothing about the fruit, as 
> it grows here, that makes me think it's anything other than just an 
> average D.virginiana.  I've got several Americans that are much 
> better here than is Geneva Long - bigger and tastier fruits
.

Hi Lucky,

That well describes my assessment also. But if I have the opportunity I'll have it's DNA ran also. 

Several years ago I had this idea that maybe D. v X k hybrids might be say 90% of the seed parent and would take several crosses of the those 90% progeny to reach maybe 80/20 then crossed again before something like 50/50 hybrids would be reached. But this idea was received coolley by people more educated than I. 

It was written in Russian at the Yalta station where Rosseyanka was bred, it was achieved by "Many years double Mentor."  When I asked what that meant they didn't know and the author had died years before. Also it was recorded as Rosseyanka 18 giving me the idea there were several hybrids were achieved but #18 was the best. I've not been able to confirm that either.   

One method used to hybridize difficult species is doubling the chromosomes using colchicine. If increasing the sets of chromosome to 4 makes it easier, why don't persimmon hybridize very easily as they have 3 sets of chromosomes?  Go figure!

Jerry 



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