CLASSIFICATION OF PERSIMMON (DIOSPYROS KAKI THUNB.) CULTIVARS ON THE BASIS OF HORTICULTURAL TRAITS.

The studies were conducted for cultivar classification on the basis of horticultural traits of 141 persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) cultivars that consist of 110 Korean native and 31 Japanese cultivars. Refractometric measurement showed that soluble solids content is much higher in pollination constant astringent (PCA) and pollination variant astringent (PVA) types than in pollination constant non-astringent (PCNA) and pollination variant non-astringent (PVNA) ones. However soluble solid content after precipitating soluble tannin with 5% polyethylene glycol did not show a clear difference between the cultivar types. 'Hapcheon-Bansi', 'Jinyang-Moolbansi' and 'Hiratanenashi' were identified as seedless. PCA cultivars contained greater amount of soluble tannin and had a smaller fruit weight than the PCNA type. The narrow distribution of fruit index (length/diameter) could distinguish the PCNA type (0.64–0.80) from other types of cultivars (0.59–1.48). Native cultivars were named according to the fruit shapes.