I did everything right, I thought. Trimmed trees carefully. Put out predator urine, thinned fruit to specs. Followed spray schedules, backpack sprayer with all the solutions from this board, went out every day to make sure everything was ok.
Went away for a week, got back yesterday, and all of my peaches (maybe 100) and pears (200?) were gone. No remnants, no cores, no mess, nothing. And none of the trees were within two weeks of being ripe. The fruits were still hard as rocks.
What with this year’s cold snap and last year’s birds, that makes two years with absolutely no fruit from 20+ trees. I’m considering just quitting.
What animal could possibly make off with about 300 unripe fruits and leave no trace? I haven’t seen any squirrels. There are a couple of groundhogs that live on the property, but some of these fruits were 25 feet high, and many on precarious growth. If there’s something obvious I’m missing, I’d love to know.
Squirrels routinely eat green peaches and pears- chipmunks do as well, but not so many so fast. It all depends on what else is available early in the season for them to eat. Coyote urine is hype- a hungry squirrel is not so easily deterred.
Somewhere or in a couple locations on this forum are pictures of the squirrel baffles I construct for many of the orchards I manage. They certainly work for the grey and brown squirrels in my area, or I’d be out of business.
Animals like raccoons, groundhogs or squirrels tends to leave some evidence on the ground. I went away for 5 days, groundhogs and squirrels took a big chunks of my not-quite-ripe fruit but left evidence on the trees and on the ground.
Do you think your orchard can be easily accessed by human beings?
Yeah, I was going to say the human animal! Anyone who knew you were going away or just observed that lights weren’t on, etc. could have come in and helped themselves. People not familiar with growing fruit wouldn’t necessarily know that it needs to be close to ripe in order to be any good.
I have 40 blueberry bushes, so as a way to contend with so many, I’ll have friends over to pick throughout the season. I remember talking with some people who were from out of state, and I invited them to pick…Coming back through to thank me, they showed me their “harvest”. More than half of what they had picked were hard green nowhere near ripe berries. What part of BLUEberries don’t you understand?!
People have gotten so self-righteous that I wouldn’t put it past them to feel like it was their due to take what was there because they wanted some. No other animal would do what you described. I’m sorry for your loss.
No trail cams around? Me either! Maybe talk to neighbors to see if they saw any unusual activity at your place.
You can ruled out raccoon because it so heavy that it broke branches. The thieves at my place that don’t break any branches are humans, squirrels, and opposums. Next year leave a trail camara while the fruits are still green. You will know who is the culprit.
I’ve had this happen many times. All fruit gone in a day, no traces. I’m 100% sure it is not humans in my case. Probably coons or possum. I’m trying low lying electric fence lines this year. I actually set them up in a hurry just two days ago. Didn’t plan it out nearly enough, need to improve my system for next year, but hoping it works for the next few weeks.
Raccoons definitely break branches, but I’ve been battling some juvenile raccoons this year and they are much lighter. I’ve chased them up some spindly branches and have been surprised at the support. I’ve hit them with some frisbees and footballs but they don’t seem deterred, lol.
Humans would be the obvious answer, except we’re very rural, the orchard is obscured behind our barn and a up a hill, and someone would’ve needed to truck in a ladder, coming from another side of the field, which is 21 acres of almost impenetrable grass. They would also have to be as motivated as they are uninformed, given these fruits will not ripen off the tree in the state they were in.
I think a camera might be my only recourse, and perhaps Alan’s baffles for next year? Still don’t know how an animal could have done this.
Here raccoon, possum, and ground hogs climb the trees. While moving around the tree their movement knocks off tons of fruit to the ground. Then that night the deer come in and clean up the ground. Clean sweep.
Hard green fruit is usually squirrels. They take a bite and it falls to the ground. Then they move to the next and repeat. That night deer come in to clean up.
Am I right in reading that any kind of hot pepper spray will not deter raccoons and squirrels? I mix hot pepper into my bird food (just outside our house window) and use spicy suet, and not one varmint has gotten anywhere near it. Nothing but songbirds. Has anyone tried a nice spray of the stuff, or is that realistic for a backpack sprayer?
IME, not necessarily squirrels. Those other animals don’t eat green peaches- only squirrels and chipmunks do or have in all my years of doing t his full time.
Now, if the fruit was almost ripe and had some sweetness, it’s not so cut and dry. However, if sqiureils are nervous they take one piece of fruit at a time and eat it where they feel more comfortable… and keep coming back.
I feel your pain. Some animals had a party on my peach tree last night. Despite all the protective measures (tube trap, motion-activated sprinkler), about 40 nearly ripe peaches disappeared - only two were left. I already had a good harvest from my Contender peach, but I left some peaches on the tree to ripen further. I guess that was my mistake.
The tube trap was triggered but didn’t catch anything, and the peaches are gone. No broken limbs - just a couple of small twigs on the ground. No peaches on the ground either; it was a very clean job.
Since it happened at night and I haven’t seen squirrels around lately, I’d rule them out. It’s probably either raccoons or a possum.
Yeah, possums are like a slow moving assassin. They can clean your fruit tree in a quiet mode. Their home is underground wilth large tunnel space to store the fruit. I found one large hole in the ground near my orchard and thought that was a rabbit hole. I set up a snare and got one huge possum. I reset the snare the next day and got the partner also
@ianrwilliams I am sorry to hear about that. I can definitely commiserate with years of effort and very little fruit. I believe I have narrowed my main bandit to the squirrel but I’ll let others be the judge.
I had a similar incident last year with a 35’ tall pear tree covered in pears. I KNOW it wasn’t humans (huge tree and I am super rural). I had been sampling pears and knew they were approaching ripe.
I had checked on the tree Sunday, went to work Monday, went out early Tuesday morning and there were zero pears. Not a core or partially eaten fruit anywhere.
I bought a trail cam after that (based on suggestion here) to see who the culprit was. I aimed the camera at a peach tree near the pear that would ripen soon.
Both the peach and the pear tree are Actually Touching trees that are part of a wooded area on my property (I know it’s a problem that I hope to fix… when I have time … ) so I figured it was a similar situation.
Visitors to peach tree in order of arrival:
A flock of turkeys - sat on the tree during the day and I saw one attempt to peck a fruit but that was it. Verdict: Not guilty
Deer - stood on hind legs and bit leaves/fruit also ate stuff on the ground. Also are annoying. Came mostly during day or very early morning. Eat trees year round and drive me crazy. Cannot climb 35’ tree. Verdict: Not guilty. But should be
Opossom - came at night. 15 days before fruit ripe. Kept coming to tree for ~3 weeks. I never actually saw an opossum eating or carrying a fruit. Entered tree from ground but exited off branches into neighboring tree - small one was okay with surprisingly small branches. However, large opossom fell off of 1/2" branch while trying to get a fruit. Verdict: most entertaining on camera and perhaps was trying to trick me into thinking they couldn’t be the pear bandit
Squirrel - most came during the day. They started coming 10 days before I thought the fruit was ripe and continued to show up daily. Carried a peach as large as its body while jumping around. Came and left via branches. Could jump with peach onto very tiny autumn olive branches in neighbor tree. Did eat peach on camera but carried off whole and partially eaten fruit into woods.
Squirrels were very tricky and would evade the game camera. I’d be watching a deer and a part of the tree would start to shake in a suspicious manner and maybe I’d catch a flash of a squirrel. Verdict: Probably guilty
Racoons - came at night in groups starting when fruit was ripe. Mostly ate bites of fruit and dropped rest on ground. Couldn’t get at fruit on smaller branches that didn’t have a place for them to put their weight. Entered and exited tree from ground. Verdict: Not guilty
I do not know why the fruit bandits removed every fruit from the pear and ate the peaches slowly over 3 weeks and even let me have some! I’m thinking the pear was (perhaps oddly) one of the first things to get close to ripe in my yard and they were hungry?
The trees that are separated from the woods fared a lot better with the wildlife, so I am making more of an effort to beat back the wilderness but it’s pretty tough to find time and energy to do so.
Interesting! I believe we are not too far from each other. In my game camera videos, the squirrels jumping around caused more tree shaking than the opossum and raccoon. However, I would completely believe some of my fruit removal could have been tree shaking + deer.
Also, my squirrels carried off huge numbers of whole fruit. I have multiple videos from every day I had my camera aimed at this tree, where squirrels carried whole fruit into the woods.
Last year I posted a pic of an opossum on my plum tree. I saw another one on my apple tree. My husband saw a groundhog shimmy up a Mammoth Sunflower (over 6 ft tall). Today, another groundhog dug up under my fence to eat my apples.
@benthegirl that is an amazing analysis. I’d love to get a camera out there and judge all the performances like you have! Sounds like squirrels are my problem, but I’m not sure how to stop them, since there are many ways to get up on the tree. Wish I could electrify the whole tree at night…
