Best peach bags?

What’s the best kind of bag to protect peaches from plum curculio and other problems here in the humid southeastern US? I’m considering these bags from Clemson University:
http://newsstand.clemson.edu/mediarelations/clemson-has-peach-growing-in-the-bag-literally/
Are they durable enough to be reusable for more than one season?

I’m also considering these organza gift bags:
http://www.yourorganzabag.com/organzabag.htm
which I saw another person recommend for their ease of use, durability, efficacy, and appearance (if you get them in moss green to blend in) but they are more expensive.

I’m interested in this too so looking forward to replies from those who have experience. I tried apple bagging (with plastic bags) last year and it was a moderate success (some earwig damage and strange cracking on some of the apples). Not sure whether we’ll pursue bagging or just spraying with Surround in the future – depends on which ends up taking more time/effort or money for our situation I guess.

I have seen mention of “footie” nylons that have been treated with Surround, for peaches, here I think.

Thanks to @mamuang , I bought 100 of the Clemson Bags and was very happy with them. Most of them stayed on from petal fall until harvest, and those that didn’t were likely because I didn’t take time to properly affix them.

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Kevin, where did you buy the Clemson bags? I might want to try this on my Sweet bagel peaches. The wasps and the big green Figeater beetles just devastated them last season. WAY worse than the birds did.

Patty S.

Directly from the University. They sent them in just a few days. Here you go: (link to their store is at very bottom of page)

http://www.clemson.edu/extension/peach/commercial/diseases/clemsonfruitbags.html

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Thanks, Kevin, just submitted an order. This peach is very delicious, but I probably only got about 1/4 of the crop due to all that damage from wasps and from this horrid, HUGE beetles. Going to use them on my fig trees, too. Boom.

Patty S.

The bags look like they would work well. My questions are how big does the fruit need to be before bagging? Is spraying fruit required before bagging? Edit. I watched the wrong video. I understand now.

Bill, I think in the first link, the researchers said they were bagging as soon as petal fall. Part of that, to see if they could prevent PC.

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Thanks

That is what I did…right after petal fall I sprayed and then bagged and left it on until harvest. One of the neat side effect of the bags is that the fruit looks very different from those exposed to sun. I’d say it would vary from one variety to the next, but the peaches I bagged were much more yellow than others on the tree, and were exactly the same color all over instead of the red blushing that varies on other peaches depending on where the sun hit them. In fact, I saw a you tube video showing that in japan they bag peaches specifically for its effect on appearance. These uniformly, lighter colored peaches fetch a very high price in the famous high-end Japanese fruit market.

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Just went out and bagged peaches with Clemson peach bags. Boy, what a task!!!

It is difficult to apply the bags properly. Many peaches are not in a location that is easy to bag, often leaves are in the way. Worse, the wrapping of a twist tie on top of the bag is very difficult. I am not sure if part of the difficulty is because I am a lefty.

I gave up after 10+ Clemson bags and used my own bread bags to bag peaches. It is a lot easier and faster.

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Yeah I found it a lot of work too. I had to do it in two or three sittings as I lost patiens after a few hours. But I think the commercial farmers here do it a little differently. I was trying to maximize the yield on my tree, so I bagged about maybe 5%. They often cut most limbs and, only keep a few fruit towards the end and underside of the branch.
Here’s a few bags I’ve tried on my peaches and grapes. The orange bag is specifically made for peaches, although I found the small grape bag next to it also worked very well. I found the type that had the V-notch in the middle, and most importantly an elongated metal tie that extends past the end of the bag to be the easiest to use. My tree is so overgrown and full of bugs that the hardest part was maneuvering without breaking the fruit off, I couldn’t see what I was doing half the time. It would be a lot easier if it was like the orchard trees.

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Clemson bags look similar to the second white bag from the left. I wish the twist tie is half an inch longer to wrap it full around the top of the bag when closed.

Can you cut the top of the bag to make it shorter and put the v cut in the middle to help with the branch? That would make your tie longer too. I just put some bags like the ones on the left on my Spice Zee. I need to bag my peach and nectarine trees yet too. The wasps like my nectarines and plums.

The top of the bag is the end with the V cut in the pic that TheNiceguy posted. Because te paper is made of a material similar to a wax paper ( used for baking cookies), it has some texture to it. A vedio shows how to fold and tie the top of the bag. It just harder to do than I realize.

The second white bag from the left is the big bag with no v cut. Did you mean the second bag from the left counting the brown bag?

My bad. It is the second bag from the left. If you watch Clemson video, you will get an idea how to put it on.

Yes, I watched it a while back. I purchased 100 bags when this thread started. Those are the ones I put on my spice zee. I still need to get them on the other trees. They do seem to have to much paper to for that wire tie.

I now wish I bought a few hundreads of these organza gift bags. So easy to use. Of course, I may regret it if they don’t work :blush:

I just put about 75 Clemson bags on. Yes, they can be a pain when there is a leaf cluster with the peach. I think sandwich bags would work for those ones better. I don’t like that you cant see the fruit unless you take the bag off. With a zip lock bag you can see if earwigs got in or if there is a problem.