My North Star sour cherry set not bad crop this year, comparing to usual just handful. It is covered with fine netting to prevent cherry fly and birds. Whole tree is covered like this:
It was dropping green berries since they set, but still have enough almost ripe now. Today I notices handful of ripe and almost ripe berries laying on the ground. I opened net ant inspected the berries. Some where deformed or affected by brown rot. But most - both ripe and unripe were perfect berries. The problem is, they were not aborted by the tree, they where cut or ripped in the middle of the peduncle like something was chewing on it:
Thanks, though two things I missed. Before covering the tree in spring I should spray it to kill who ever was there before I covered. And covering the mulch with landscape fabric can help too to hold whoever going to develope. Will try next time.
I picked a quart of almost ripe berries from the ground today. They cut exactly the same way as on the picture above. Inspected cherries that still hanging - can’t find any pests as well as any damaged stems… Still puzzled. I completely removed the mulch with what ever berry remains and pests in it, replaced it with brand new pine bark mulch and covered with piece of agribon for easy monitoring… Will see. If I see same drop continues, I may spray with BT. Not sure if it will help though.
I think my mystery is solved. It took a pair of 20/20 eyes, that happened to belong to my son visiting me from Canada. I showed him the damage and in 30 seconds he found the first intruder, then another 10. Gypsy moth, large larva! I guess I covered the tree with small larva inside. Looks like the moth doesn’t like cherry leaves, just got there accidentally by wind, Very few leaves have minimal damage, much less damage than was done in two days to my apple trees before I discovered them . Only suitable food larva found was berry stems. I guess they did a good job of thinning my cherries. I hope now my cherries have a chance to get ripe.
