Winter Pruning Techniques for Spring Branches of Persimmon Trees
Methods to Improve Persimmon Tree Yield and Quality: 1. The prospects of the persimmon industry. In recent years, most Fuping persimmons (not pressed into cakes) have been purchased and exported by Japanese and South Korean buyers at a price of over ten yuan per kilogram. Meanwhile, several large supermarkets in Xi'an have long been selling Guangxi dried persimmons, with a retail price of under 10 yuan per (0.5 kg). This shows...
1. Pruning of water sprouts. Water sprouts should generally be removed in summer. If they are not pruned in time in summer, they must be cut off from the base in winter. If the area where a water sprout grows is relatively bare, it can be headed back to a length of 20-30 cm to encourage latent buds to sprout and grow into bearing branches.2. Pruning of vegetative branches. Inside the canopy of a persimmon tree there are some weak, slender branches, which should be thinned out during winter pruning. However, if the variety is monoecious with separate male and female flowers, 1/3 to 1/2 of the branches should be appropriately retained. Most normal vegetative branches are good mother branches for fruiting, and they should be cut back by 1/3 to 1/2 according to their growth vigor, while excessive branches should be thinned out at the same time.
3. Pruning of bearing branches. After fruiting, most bearing branches of persimmon trees grow slender and weak. Bearing branches should be treated according to their growth vigor: retain the good ones, and treat some of them as renewal branches.
4. Pruning of mother branches for fruiting. If there are too many mother branches for fruiting and they are allowed to grow naturally, it is very easy to cause alternate bearing; if there are too few mother branches for fruiting, the yield of the current year will be affected. Therefore, for persimmon trees that have entered full fruiting age, controlling the mother branches for fruiting should be taken as the main measure to regulate alternate bearing. During winter pruning, trees with good growth vigor should have more branches retained and fewer cut, while trees with poor growth vigor should have fewer retained and more cut. At the same time, measures such as flower thinning and fruit thinning in the following year can also achieve balanced yield increases and overcome alternate bearing. After persimmon trees enter the late fruiting stage, the sprouting of shoot tips will fluctuate irregularly as the tree age increases. Therefore, the mother branches for fruiting should be renewed and pruned in time. During renewal, use the buds or shoots near the mother branches for fruiting to form new mother branches for fruiting, and thereafter use the single-branch renewal method and the double-branch renewal method year by year to restore tree vigor and achieve the goal of extending the tree's lifespan.