The first week of last December, with the noticeable decrease of the temperature reaching -3ºC, 90% of the total kaki fruit production that still remained on the tree to be harvested was damaged (about 30% in the Valencia área). The fruits had black spots and became softened due to cold damage. Moreover, we must add the last frosts occurred in March, when the persimmon trees had started to sprout and therefore had a greater vulnerability to cold damage. Normally, the persimmon trees begin to growth from the main buds show in between 1 and 7 flowers in each shoot, that are the ones that will give the production. After loosing the main bud, the tree has the ability to regrow by sprouting lateral buds or latent buds, but unfortunately, this kind of vegetative formations do not usually take flowers so the production expected for this year will be diminished, delaying the production until the following year.
In the picture Nº1 we can see shoots where the main bud had not been affected and therefore they have flowers that will give a good production for this year.
In the picture Nº2 can be observed that the main bud is dead due to have the frost at the base of two shoots. The branch has sprung two lateral or dormant buds and these new buds usually will not have any flower.The tree will recover, but production will not be obtained this year.