Last year, some of the grafts on my apple Frankentree fruited for the first time. With only a small number of apples on the tree, I put each apple in a cotton cloth bag to protect them from birds. This year, I had more apples on the same tree and netted the entire tree against birds, without bagging any of the apples. This accidental experiment produced very interesting results — I discovered that an apple grown in a cloth bag can completely (or almost completely) lack the red skin color or blush typical for a particular variety.
Some of you might remember my post from about a year ago, in which I showed photos of yellow apples that grew on a graft that was supposed to be Cripps Pink (Pink Lady). Those apples had not a single spot of red color and hence I concluded that the scionwood I used for that graft was mislabeled. However, this year, apples on the same graft are beautifully colored and look exactly as Cripps Pink (Pink Lady) apples should.
Cripps Pink apples grown in cloth bags (last year):
@Antmary, @PommeThrum, turns out after all that the scionwood that I sent you in 2017 as Cripps Pink is true to label (sorry for misleading info in my post from the last year); if exposed to enough sun these apples look exactly as a beautiful “Pink Lady” should. Belle de Boskoop, Gravenstein, Lady Williams, Wickson, and Hudson’s Golden Gem are also true to label.
Stan,
That’s neat. Can you show the pic of your cloth bags, please? Just wonder how thick the material is.
This reminds me of fruit or veggies that growers change their colors by shading them i.e. green beans/yellow (green) beans, asparagus, etc. Japanese fruit growers bag their fruit on the purpose of changing coloring of such fruit. They use paper bags, for the post part.
These are the bags that I use: Midwest Pacific Brand Cloth Cotton Drawstring Parts Bags | Packco Inc
They’re made from cotton cloth which is not too thick so they aren’t completely opaque (in contrast to the bags that Japanese growers use). For example, for peaches and plums these bags have no effect on the skin color. This is why their effect on apple skin color was so surprising to me.
The article on Japanese apples that you linked says that their opaque bags “leave apples a creamy white color”. My cloth bags result in apples with their natural “background color” (yellow or green), while the red color that normally covers the background is completely or almost completely eliminated.
Earwigs bother my apples but rarely seen on peaches. Thanks for the warning.
I do wrap trunks of all my trees to discourage ants, earwigs and other crawlers. Maybe, this is effective with my peaches because there is enough space in between each tree. Where apples are, everything touches one another.
Are you talking about Stan’s bags or plastic zip lock bags?
@Susu, no color differences in plastic bags or organza bags. Those in Japanese paper bags/ Clemson bags have a paler color but not so diffferent like Stan’s.
I believe that if you have a stand alone tree with no branches touch the ground, fences or other trees/structures, trunk wrapping early in the season ( before earwigs move up your tree) works.
4x6 for most plums and apricots
5x7 for most peaches and smaller apples
6x8 for large peaches and mid-size to large apples (6x8 would even fit pomegranates)
