John Strang, Extension Fruit & Vegetable Specialist, Emeritus
Last spring's May freeze killed the young shoots on persimmons, chestnuts and some other nut types based on how low the temperature dropped. This injury was just like a heading back cut where the tip of a shoot is removed. As a result, trees produced multiple undesirable shoots below each dead shoot. This will result in further unwanted branch growth this season and cause young trees to develop poor limb structures. It is not reasonable to try and correct this on older larger trees, but it would be worth the time to correct this on young trees.
Prune out the dead shoots and some of the excess shoots. Undesirable shoots will often be growing straight up, downward, back towards the tree center or shoots may just be too close together. Use thinning out cuts where the entire young shoot is removed at its base. The number of shoots should be reduced to one to three on most terminals. Figures 1 and 2 below show corrective pruning on a freeze injured persimmon tree.
Figure 1. Persimmon prior to pruning
Figure 2. Persimmon following corrective pruning