Other insect pests include thrips, fruit piercing moths, and stem girdlers, each significant in particular locations. The main disease is Cercospora , or angular leaf spot, which can reduce productivity through premature defoliation. A major problem for growers is that few chemicals are registered for use on persimmons. Vertebrate pests include birds and fruit-eating bats. In many locations these are a major limitation to production, and the only successful control is to erect permanent netting over whole orchards.
Netting also protects against hail.
Harvesting, grading and packing Individual fruit are clipped from the tree, gently placed into bins and carefully transported to the packhouse. There, they are polished by soft roller brushes or manually with a cloth. Grading takes size, shape, firmness, degree of blemish and colour into account. Fruit are packed by hand into single layer trays, each containing about 3.5 kg of fruit. Small fruit are packed 25 or 28 to a tray, medium 20 or 23, and large 12 to 18.