Hello,
I have this little guy, about 1.5ft tall, who appears to have abandoned its central leader (red). This is our first summer with it, and when we got it, all it had was the red stem. This season it has produced everything else, and especially the blue one looks like it is trying to be the new leader but it’s growing at an odd angle. It’s not very clear in the photo (I can only attach 1 photo as a new user) but it reaches several inches higher than the red branch.
My question is, what should I prune this winter? I should definitely remove the sprouts near the bottom, but don’t know what to do about the blue vs red stems. I’d appreciate any tips/suggestions!
Thank you
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I’m having a little trouble telling what I’m looking at from just the one angle, but…if that’s a grafted tree it looks like there’s two rootstock shoots (seem to have redder petioles than the leaves on the leader) that probably should have been pruned off quite a while ago when they were much smaller.
I’d get rid of those now, but there’s people much more experienced than me with persimmons here, so I’d like to see what they recommend.
Come Winter, I’d just prune the blue branch back a node or two and the red should become dominant.
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Hey thanks for your reply! It didn’t occur to me to that perhaps this could be grafted, the petiole difference is good evidence, and there is also a yellow paint mark near the bottom could be the grafting site. I’ll make sure to prune those sprouts sooner next time I see them. I was just happy to see it made it through the winter and was growing something.
We are going through a bit of a heat wave now so I think I will hold off on pruning the longest stems, I’ll probably just pinch it back for now until it goes dormant (unless more folks comment to cut them off right away). Here is another pic from the other side that more clearly shows the height difference.
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