How to Prune a Persimmon Tree? A Detailed Guide to the Latest Methods

Persimmon is one of our common fruits. Its yield is extremely high, and its growing returns are good. It is planted in every region of our country. Persimmons taste excellent and are rich in nutrients, and they also help with digestion and increase appetite, giving them extremely high edible value. During planting, pruning is an extremely critical technique. Let's take a look below at how persimmons should be pruned.

1. Winter pruning

Winter pruning is mainly carried out during the winter dormant period, and can be done from after leaf fall until before bud break at Spring Festival. Because the persimmon tree has poor cold resistance, pruning too early is not good for its overwintering, but early pruning helps form mixed buds during pruning. Winter pruning should first shorten the overly long autumn shoots, so as to avoid the branches growing too long and causing the canopy to close up too quickly. In addition, during pruning, diseased and pest-infested branches should also be pruned off, and they should be burned together with fallen leaves and dead branches or buried deeply, to eliminate overwintering sources of pests and diseases. After pruning, whitewash the trunk to increase the tree's cold resistance.

2. Spring pruning

Spring pruning can be carried out from spring shoot sprouting and flower bud appearance until before flowering. Its main purpose is to regulate the movement of scaffold branches and balance the tree's vigor. For fruiting branches from winter and fruiting branches on spring shoots or summer shoots, the summer shoot section should be cut off in time, keeping the fruiting branch on the spring shoot section. At the same time, to avoid fruiting branches becoming too dense due to excessive sprouting, some fruiting branches should be thinned out to maintain air permeability. Pruning wounds should be promptly coated with medicine for protection, to prevent pathogen invasion.

3. Summer pruning

Summer pruning is carried out after the flowers fade. First, for the sprouted summer shoots, repeatedly pinch off the growing tips before leaf expansion, leaving 2-3 leaves, to reduce nutrient consumption. Then, after physiological fruit drop, thin the fruit in time. Generally, strong branches keep 2-3 fruits, medium branches keep 1-2 fruits, and weak branches keep 3 fruits or none. When thinning fruit, note that the fruits on the same fruiting branch must be spaced a certain distance apart, to avoid them becoming crowded due to swelling in the later fruit stage, which would affect fruit development.

4. Pruning young trees

Pruning young trees is mainly to build the framework and train the structure, and attention should be paid to the balance among main branches and their subordinate relationships. Timely pinching is also needed to promote the growth of fruiting branches. Generally, control the trunk height at about 1.2 m, select good main branches according to the tree shape, and thin less and cut more to increase the number of branches. For vigorous branches and water sprouts, prune and pinch them in time to promote secondary shoots and expand the canopy.

The above is an introduction to how to prune persimmons. We hope it can help you. To learn more related knowledge, please stay tuned to us.