Do PC attack your pears as much as your apples?
Do Codling Moth and Oriental Fruit Moth attack your pears as much as your apples or is pear skin tough enough to resist them?
First year my pears are really bearing, trying to figure out my bag strategy.
I don’t know OFM, CM and PC attack my pears more. I have other fruit they may like better such as pluns and peaches. Those have gooten serious damage very year if not protected.
Most of my pears get Surround sprays a couple of times. No bags. Too many to bag. Many pears with damage on skin dhave not had serious damage, partly could be that pears grow so fast, cell expansion crush those eggs before thry could hatch and do more damage.
There are times when those buggers could tunnel to the core and cost fruit to ripen sooner and change the pears’ texture ( but not causing them to drop like peaches.
If you can, it is safer to protect them, be it spraying or bagging. In my experience, bagging smooth skin pears like Euro pears has caused their skin to get some russeting. I talk about plastic ziplock bags that have only two ventilati9n holes at the bottom. Russeted skin pears like Korean Giant, Hosui, Kosui are not affected.
Thanks. I saw one of @clarkinks clark’s posts saying at least some of his pears had pretty tough skin that resisted insect damage.
Maybe I’ll bag some, spray Surround on some and leave some alone, after thinning.
Then compare results.
My main problem is losing 80% of my bagged apples to early drop. If I bag only clean fruit (no PC bites) then maybe wind is causing the drops- turning the bags into sails. I catch a lot of wind coming off Chesapeake Bay. If I wait to bag at say 1/2 inch fruit the stems should resist wind I would hope.
No i dont bag pears because pears dont need it here. If they did need it i would use fruit molds Fruit and vegetable molds - different shapes = big $$$$. Pears grow really fast crushing most burrowing insects in most cases. Certain moths can be a problem at some orchards after the fruit is nearly mature but have not been here. If they were i would spray them or set traps for them. Traps can be effective The Ultimate Japanese Beetle trap
I still don’t get how bagging your fruit doesn’t cook it. You’re basically putting a mini greenhouse around each fruit in the hot summer sun.
@mamuang Do you thin before or after spraying Surround? You said somewhere that you leave 2 per cluster initially so that might mean you thin once before Surround and once after?
I thin early at about pea size so that is before Surround spray. I don’t experience June drop on pears. (Some on apples but not much at all).
If you have high pest pressure, you can leave 3 per cluster andcome back later. I usually need to thin 3-4 times.
I didn’t have pest problems on my pears last year, but I did buy some bags this year for my apples. I’m just worried about the wind ripping the things off at this point, so I haven’t used them yet. Pears are about the size of a quarter or so. Apples way behind.
Bought these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07W8GR4JC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
and these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VSYYFZY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1