Nikita’s Gift
Selected from the offspring of a backcross of ‘Rosseyanka’ to Diospyros virginiana
The record
- Parentage
- Selected from the offspring of a backcross of ‘Rosseyanka’ to Diospyros virginiana
- Origin
- Oleksandr Naumovich Kazas · Nikitsky Botanical Garden, Yalta, Crimea · 1975
- Rights
- rights unknown — Some North American nurseries list the name with a ™ symbol; no registered mark, patent or certificate was found in the sources consulted. Treat the rights as unresearched rather than as settled either way.
- Also known as
- Nikitskaya Bordovaya, Nikita’s Gift™ in some nursery listings
- Fruit
- Flattish, red-orange, about 2½ inches; sweet and flavourful when fully soft
- Astringency
- Astringent — ripen soft before eating
- Hardiness
- Reported hardy to about −10 °F
- Pollination
- Parthenocarpic, setting seedless fruit alone; with a pollinizer it sets somewhat larger seeded fruit
- Habit
- Dwarfer than ‘Rosseyanka’
Description
A second-generation hybrid: ‘Rosseyanka’ crossed back to the American species, selected at the Nikitsky Botanical Garden at Yalta in 1975 under the name Nikitskaya Bordovaya.
The backcross is the point. One generation of kaki × American gives fruit quality with some hardiness; crossing that back to the American parent buys more hardiness at some cost to the kaki character. It is the standard dial in interspecific breeding, and this file records both settings — ‘Rosseyanka’ at the first generation, this at the second.
One caution about the rights line. The name appears with a ™ in North American nursery listings, and no registered mark or patent turned up in the sources consulted. A symbol in a catalogue is a claim, not a record. The rights field stays unresearched until something authoritative settles it.