Kathleen Rhoades

@kathleenrhoades

Tree breeder 🧬🌳🍒 Beekeeper 🐝🍯🐝 Opinions expressed here are solely representative of the Doc Rhoades Honey Company she/her

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Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· 5d

I will be at the International Horticultural Congress #IHC2026 in Kyoto next week, presenting on persimmons at the Temperate Fruit Breeding Symposium! If you will also be there, hit me up! If you want to follow along on my adventures, I will be posting mostly on instagram, at kat.fury.rd

Title slide for my talk: A History of American Persimmon Breeding and Outlook for Future Efforts

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· 15d

Hoosier Kernel, January 1957

It is better to plant a $1.00 tree in a $5.00 hole than to plant a $5.00 tree in a $1.00 hole. While all of us who have planted nut trees have made mistakes, the fellow who made the greatest mistake of all is the one who never planted a nut tree. -J. Ford Wilkinson

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· 16d

I did the kinship heatmap @jrossibarra.bsky.social !! I'm so pleased with it

heatmap of kinship between 38 persimmon samples, showing a few red clusters indicating high kinship between several individuals

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Jun 25

500+ baby persimmons from seed collected last September! These will go into the breeding orchard spring 2027 🧪

Very small trees in flats in a greenhouse

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Jun 19

I'm working on getting my beehives back into shape so I can start selling honey again, but that in itself costs money. So! I had some stickers made, high-quality vinyl, one with my logo and one with a quote that I found that I think is funny and true. 4 bucks each. docrhoadeshoney-shop.bigcartel.com

Along with some other things, the country needs a better persimmon. -RB Best, 1955

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Jun 5

look at this sleepy baby

Close up shot of a stick with a couple baby leaves just starting to emerge from their buds

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Jun 2

Today in old fruit and nut newsletters (May 1958 newsletter of the Indiana Nut Growers Association):

THE THREE MUSKETEERS or Always Carry a Shovel
Once upon a time as all fairy tales should begin there was a great demand for scion wood of various types. So, on March 23, 1958 Ken Dooley drove over to our home and picked me up and away we went to Elwood, Indiana to pick up Martin Hanson.

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· May 27

Checked up on the black locusts at Allerton this morning

Three rows of middle-sized black locust trees with corn field in the distance

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· May 22

God bless you Fred Beckett, for asking good questions AND providing your own data

HOW BIG DO NATIVE PERSIMMONS GROW?
Frederick E. Beckett
P. O. Box 536
Bruce, MS 38915
Some oriental persimmons weigh as much as 3/4 pound. Corwin Davis grew an Overleese pawpaw that weighed 17 ounces. I would like. information like this for the native persimmon (Diospyros virginia). If weights have been published in POMONA I missed them. I did not find weights in PERSIMMONS FOR EVERYONE either. To make a start I gathered fruit from 3 trees and weighed it. The results follow:
Tree
Av. fruit wt.
Tree A in counsin I syard
1. 5 oz.
Tree B by creek
.44 oz.
Tree C on campus
.64 oz.

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· May 15

Sunrise in the Smokies

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Apr 21

Here's an example (not on a tiny seedling obvs)

A twin-trunked persimmon tree with its bark that looks like alligator or crocodile skin

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Apr 21

Persimmons are still sleepin, but based on my foolproof test of "is it bendy" it seems like they mostly got through winter ok!

Large hayfield with many small tree tubes and one still dormant tree in a tube in foreground

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Apr 15

1968 Northern Nut Grower's Association meeting proceedings breaking my heart

The Tree Crop Farm had to be sold. The Nursery closed down. Dreams sometimes end like this.

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Apr 14

what a Normal Time we continue to live in

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), to the extent permitted by law, will no longer make grants or otherwise fund programs or activities that improperly discriminate on the basis of race or sex, including discrimination in the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies. Instead, USDA will prioritize merit and efficiency.

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Apr 13

Btw Mothman says hello

The shiny chrome Mothman sculpture with large plaque that I was standing too far away to read in this photo

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Apr 2

The only non-fiction book titled "Communion" I'M going to be reading this year

Communion, A True Story, by Whitley Strieber. The cover image is of an alien with big freaky ink-black eyes and a weird little smile.

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Mar 28

Everyone watches women's hockey!!!! #pwhl

NY Sirens puck drop against Montreal Victoire at Little Caesars arena

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Mar 27

This question really had me reenacting sweaty-superhero-with-two-red-buttons.jpg

I trust tech founders more than politicians when it comes to solving big problems. Agree or Disagree.

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Mar 24

or a square

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Mar 24

finally had some time to fiddle with this

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Mar 24

*deepest sigh I have ever sighed*

Dr. W. M. Rohrbacher of Iowa City, Iowa, was our twenty-second president at the Urbana meeting in 1951. The presence of Dr. Rohrbacker's charming wife and attractive daughters added interest to the meeting.

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Mar 20

Hey now no need to be mean (Oct. 1967 Pomona)

Some 'diseases' of mankind are not listed in medical dictionaries. To name a few - stamp collecting, square dancing, beekeeping, and golf. Another lesser known 'disease', but none the less virulent, is the propagation of persimmons.

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Mar 18

fruit/nut club newsletters are always looking for people to submit writing and I always tell myself I don't really have anything to write about that's worth reading and then I go back through old documents and find this from 1937:

Random Notes from Connecticut, by W.C. Deming

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Mar 18

@bmceuen.bsky.social surprise J.H. Kellogg mention in the proceedings from the 4th annual Northern Nut Growers Assn meeting, apparently he would send out persimmon seeds ~1913?

Seeds from those Battle Creek persimmon trees can be procured from Dr. J.H. Kellogg by writing him. They are the two most northern persimmon trees which I have discovered so far. The fruit is good to the taste and the trees have lived through terribly cold winters. I mention this as many of you are fruit growers also and want to get persimmon stock in order to graft the Japanese persimmon on. The female tree every second year is loaded to the point of breakage and should do well for stock.

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Mar 18

Damn this got heated (41st annual NNGA meeting, August 1950)

Yet we have nurserymen, lots of them, that are propagating Stabler and still selling them to people.
MR. MCDANIEL: I know one nursery which has recently discontinued it. That's Armstrong, way out in California.
MR CALDWELL: Why doesn't it produce a good nut? Can you answer that question?
DR. CRANE: It does produce a good nut when it produces.
MR. CALDWELL: If it doesn't produce all the while, why doesn't it? If you can solve that--
DR. CRANE: Why didn't you grow up to a six-foot-six guy weighing 250 pounds?

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Mar 18

Going through old NNGA proceedings this afternoon, caught George Slate being snarky:

MR SLATE: I want to support Mr. Anthony's remarks that there are too many old men testing nut tree varieties

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Mar 16

I'm sort of off today b/c of travel but I fell down a rabbithole of trying to find past years' numbers on USDA-NIFA 🧪 funding and now I have made you this graph:

bar chart of NIFA awards per year showing peak of around 1.75 billion dollars in 2023 and less than 500 million dollars in 2025

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Mar 12

Good morning from Dubuque

Bright morning overlooking Dubuque, IA with the Mississippi River in the background

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Feb 24

Oh, this one's very cool: "Part of 6,000 black locust posts cut from 3.5 acres of old timber claims. Third cutting from old claim planted in 1888. Fourth cutting expected in 1944." (taken 1938) cdrhmedia.unl.edu/iiif/2/prair...

Scan of a black and white photograph of two men sawing down a black locust tree. Behind them are dozens of poles cut from other black locust in the grove.

Kathleen Rhoades@kathleenrhoades· Feb 24

Farm dog helping to demonstrate the effectiveness of a shelter belt of Chinese elm, honey locust, and catalpa, 1938 cdrhmedia.unl.edu/iiif/2/prair...