To: William McNam <billmcnam@yahoo.com>, North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Yates persimmon photos
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:28:49 -0500
William,
I can't fully test your' heat and brown coloration' hypothesis, but I
can offer my experience.
I planted a Yates that I ordered from Stark Bros. about 4 years ago. It
bore fruit for the first time this year. I concur on their excellent
falvor, size and early ripening. I expected (based on Jerry's previous
comments) but did not see significant brown discoloration in my fruit.
I may have missed insignificant specs of color. They looked pretty
uniformly orange to me. It has been an unusually hot summer here in
central NC, within the top 5 hottest years on record I believe.
Betsy Hilborn
7a Central NC
I have often heard that the Yates fruit has dark specs (precipitated
tannin?) embedded in the flesh. For example ,here is a comment from
Jerry Lehman: "Juhl (Yates) is among the earliest. It is large & sweet.
I highly recommend it. Only problem is the flesh is loaded with
precipitated tannins (black material) and isn't pleasant to look at.
Looks dirty!!! Otherwise a great early persimmon. It is the seed parent
of H-118 which has much less black material." I hadn't noticed this
before. Upon closer observation one very hot year, I did notice some
insignificant brown specs in the flesh. But they were not conspicuous
,and did not affect the taste. These close-ups of cut fruit from the
2011 season show no dark "inclusions" (brown specs) in the flesh of
Yates fruit This has been a cooler-than-usual summer ,with heat unit
accumulations below normal. This year is the latest this fruit has
ever ripened for me. I have formulated a hypothesis: the brown specs
occur more in years of "high heat unit accumulations" and in regions
with hotter summers than mine. Perhaps the grape growers on list can
confirm a similar phenomenon with wine grapes: Is there a correlation
between hot summers and high tannin concentrations in grapes? Of course
there could be other cultural explanations. P.S.I got my graftwood of
Yates directly from Ed Yates.