We had a storm th other day that split my Fuyu persimmon. It is pretty disappointing. This is the first year it was loaded with fruit. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Should I cut the branches off and hope it grows back. The fruit is green with some just starting to show
faint spots of orange.
Wow
That was very unfortunate damage by the storm. If you really like to save the fruits then propped up the broken branch a bit off the ground and let the fruits mature. In the Spring cut the trunk all the way down to that lowest side Branch and let that branch to be a new leader. Or you can also cut all the way down to the split point and let it send up a bunch of the new branches and choose the strongest one for the new leader.
That’s rough, especially with a full crop load on it. Persimmons are generally good at recovering from damage like this though. I’d clean up the split with a sharp saw so it heals cleanly rather than leaving torn bark. If the split branch still has live cambium attached to the trunk you might be able to bolt it back together with a threaded rod, but if it’s mostly separated then removing it and letting the tree regrow is probably the safer bet. Either way I wouldn’t expect to lose the whole tree from this.
Tony,
Thanks.
Joao,
Thanks. Removing all the area above the split will just leave a stump. Based upon your comments and Tony’s that may be the way to go.
Did it have a tight angle crotch where it split? Seems like that may have caused it to fail.
I do not think that was the problem, but it could have been. I generally just let the persimmon trees do their thing but that may not be the best approach. As an update I removed the tree.
Shame you lost the tree. Proper pruning early on can prevent a failure in the future.
