I had very good success with bagging, at least until we started having complete and total weather related crop failures a few years ago.
I will say that it got just a little worse every year. The last year I had earwig damage that was significant. Earwigs are smarter than the average insect.
I never thought about cutting a hole in the side . I always trimmed off the lip above the zip lock and stapled along the top. I don’t know why the side cut wouldn’t work.
Brady,
Netting will protect against birds but you should not drape the net on the tree. Crows can peck through it. You have to put netting over the tree.
I use netting from American Nettings and somehow make it shape like a mosquito net over my trees. Do Not forget to secure the net on the ground or gather the bottom and tie it to the trunk of the tree. Crows are smart. They will walk on the ground and get to your fruit from underneath.
Greetings:
I have bagged apples before just to use the pictures on fruit lectures. I use plastic ziplock bags with
good results. The only tree I now bag is Haralson as Imidan insecticide tends to leave the skin of this
apple really scarred up. The rest I spray. Friends that I know who do this have good luck also
if they spray early in the season and then bag when the fruits are dime sized. Those who bagged
but did not spray at least at petal fall sometimes had curculio scars that occurred before the bag was
put on.
Unfortunately, I now get reports from friends that deer have figured out that what is inside the bag is good to eat. Two friends lost a lot of fruit last year to these critters. They find the
bag still on the tree but the apple eaten in half. Once the deer figured what was in the bag, they kept coming back.
Brady,
Your pear tree looks good. How tall will you keep it? It can grow very tall. You’ll need to good ladder.
That pear tree looks like a piece of art. Modern art, anyway. That’s a smart way to do it. You can harvest from the truck bed too.
I’ll have to remember that. I have a plum tree that’s too tall for me to pick fruit.
I planted the tree on the property where I work,so probably small for awhile and when I’m gone,things may change. Brady
Last year was my maiden voyage trying to protect lots of great Hana Fuyu and Suruga persimmons after they had become orange colored and were being ruined by wasps, honeybees, woodpeckers, Mocking birds, and squirrels. I loosely enclosed clusters of 2-4 fruit in tan colored, thin, plastic grocery bags and tied a somewhat loose knot on top with the bag handle loops. There was always a bit of an opening near the knot, so on warmer days hot air would not build up inside. Not even one fruit was damaged in the 25 or so bags, but among the unbagged were quite a few that got poked, gnawed, or otherwise gobbled up by the critters while waiting for them to fully ripen. Due to some water collecting inside during heavy rain, this year I will cut bottom drain holes when installing them rather than after the first big rain. Also, I will bag them as soon as the orange makeover begins. From a distance the tan bags are hardly an eyesore.
Thanks for the experience!
If I’m lucky, and my persimmons set this year, I will take your experience to heart and bag mine too.
This(2014) was also the first year that I also bagged paw paws with the gray Lowe’s bags. A few big fruit were on the ground one day and had squirrel(s) bite marks on them, but were not eaten at all. I primarily bagged them in similar fashion as the persimmons so that when they got ripe and fell down instead of falling 5 to 15 feet down to the ground they would only fall a few inches and gently land in the bag. Those that had been landing on the ground in the past would get insect and pillbug damage pretty quickly before I got to them. Every bagged fruit whether solo or in a cluster would be easy to see from below sitting in the bottom of the bag. Again, the gray bags were not an eyesore from a distance.
I read about growers who pinch out fruit blossoms and don’t wait to thin until the fruit has formed. They say some apples will trip into biennial bearing if you wait to thin until the fruit appears. I plan to thin blooms this year and bag before the June drop.
I used ziplock bags last year and it worked well, but I worry about the apple being in contact with hot plastic for months on end. Do the apples end up with plastic molecules on them? Is this similar to warning not to microwave anything in plastic?
I’m testing this design to reduce moisture inside the bag and keep labor per bag down. About 50 have been installed and they appear to be doing better at reducing condensation.
Last weekend and today I thinned apples and bagged them. This is my Liberty on M27. Minidwarf so every apple counts. The apples are about half the size of a dime. No evidence of insect damage before bagging. Some of last week’s bags steamed up a little, so I plumped up the bags to let air out.
Between this tree, a pear, and a fig, I used a 150-count box of zipper sandwich bags. It was not too tedious. I like getting up close and personal with my trees, and the repetitive work, thinning, observing, thinning, was a form of puttering meditation.
Looks good. Bagging my smaller trees was fun but my one standard pear tree was a pain. It might get sprayed with surround next season. Is your picture an apple or pear tree? Bill
Bill, that tree is a Liberty apple on M27, very dwarf. I did start bagging pears for the first time this year too.
For years I use bread packaging material its ideal for fruit protection
these pouches count a hundred ventilation holes There are different sizes small and large and thy are very weather resistant.
I guess not available in the US
Nectarine Seedling
Perfect seedling Nectarine
That looks like a winner. I’ve seen those here, but I don’t recall seeing smaller sizes. Here is a place selling.
http://www.kitchenkrafts.com/product/micro-perforated-gusseted-bread-bags
Scott
Has anyone had problems with strong winds? Depending on conditions, a bag could whip around until the fruit pops off the tree.
I use sandwich bag to cover my fruits. Never see the bagged fruit drop because of the strong wind.
Today, I used my wife’s pantyhose to bag several apples and a few peaches!
Cut them into reasonable-sized pieces; drop them over the fruitlets like a hood; then tie off the ends.
