Chris:

If mine I'd not cut off at knee high. At one inch caliper they might not resprout at all. With those beautiful big trees I'd dig a really big hole so as to save and spread out all the roots. Then I'd prune out the crowded wood, no more than 50%, and go for a crop in year 2-3.

My persimmons haven't been that vigorous. They'll not reach 10ft with zero pruning. YMMV.

Wow...lots of roots, very nice looking trees. Where did you order them from?

Picked up the trees from Ison's Nursery in Brooks GA, they were around $53.00 per tree - the are labeled as: "Instant Orchard trees". If you go on there facebook page I think you can get free shipping for orders over $75.00

My reaction was the same as melikeeatplants. Those trees look great.

I went to Ison's site but don't see the instant orchard trees. I bet those are for pickup only.

I follow the method described here

Here is a link that might be useful: pruning persimmon

Hi Chris,
I rec'd my IO Chocolate Persimmon also which I did prune hard to make the very large tree more manageable and hopefully I have not harmed it by doing so but my tree has a black core that appears to travel down through the trunk. If you decide to cut your trees back could you post rather or not you see this defect in your trees. Thanks

**If anyone has any idea what cause a tree to have this defect I'd really like to know.

Here is a link that might be useful: Instant Orchard Fruit Trees from Isons Nursery

This post was edited by kngskid on Mon, Jan 14, 13 at 22:47

The one in the middle looks a bit furry. Try pruning the tail, and plant it paw side down into some dirt. That might encourage it to grow upright.

At that size you just have to encourage the dominance of the central leader by choosing the most upright branch and removing all others more than half the diameter of the trunk at point of attachment so leader can maintain dominance. When the tree gets to the height you want you can think about other aspects of training. The less pruning the better during establishment beyond removing oversized branches that will distort the form of the tree.

I'd probably prune those guys at 4', just keeping the lower scaffolds. Back when I planted my main persimmons ten years ago I had a few big ones like that and I cut them all to knee height and they all came out fine. If the roots are healthy the tree wants to live. On vigorous roots you may need to do early limb spreading, otherwise you may get three straight-up non-scaffolds.

Scott

Thanks to all for the advise, Scott, glad to hear you were successful with the knee high pruning technique, think I am going with the 3 to 4 foot cut in March when things warm up here. As you noted Scott, I figure the hard prune will likely promote vertical shoot growth so I will probably be pulling the new shoots down with string tied to rocks like I have been doing with my new apple trees.

Nice looking trees! Would you consider selling the pruned branch tips of the Chocolate persimmon? I have a few rootstocks and I would like to graft it. I already have Fuyu.

Patrick