Re- evaluating bagging fruit

I fold the edge over and then put the pin on. Usually takes more than one._

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There are all kinds of bags in my yards. The most effective is ziplock on apples.

The second best is Clemson bags on peaches.

The thrid best could be this window screen. We shall see.

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Tippy it is very hard to find any kind of sandwich bag in France, probably because most sandwiches are made on baguettes! You might have to send some to me or even better, bring them!

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I’ve never tried bagging. The only things that have significantly produced so far have been the berries and some pears.
So far, not much has bothered the pears so I’ve been leaving them alone.
The issue is that my new Asian pear has set 2 fruit this year.
I’d really like to try them and want to give them the best possible shot at making it to ripeness.
I have zip locks, and can make or get organza or other cloth bags. I even have some nylons I’m willing to sacrifice for the cause.
Best suggestions?

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If your going bag them I would suggest going with screens like @mamuang did in an above picture. If you can leave space between screen and the fruit I think this helps prevent bug damage and bird pecks.

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Agree with @Auburn. Plastic ziplock bags and organza bags are no match to squirrels. They can bite through them easily.

If you don’t have window screen material, another kind of harder nylon bags (not nylon stocking material) can slow squirrel down.

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Organza gave my apples godawful sooty blotch

Im using force-flex ziplocks. Best results over the years for me has been ziplocks

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This is the type of bag that has more resistance to squirrel’s bites.

The damage to the fruit inside is less than an organza or a ziplock bag. I call it a nylon bag but not the footsie nylon kind.

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For those who want to know what it looked like re. damage from squirrels. Here were my apricots in organza bags. The fruit were ripening but not quite fully ripened. It did not matter to those sob one bit.

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I did an early morning walk through my fruit trees. They are rapidly increasing in size due to our unusual rainy weather. The bagged apples appear to be in good shape and most but not all of my pears in bags look pretty good. Most of my issue with bagged pears happened early and I just removed them from the tree. The remaining ones look pretty good but many bad ones were removed. I have much to learn about pear bagging.

I use that nylon bags for the pears I care about i.e. Harrow Sweet, Fondante, Clara frij. I don’t bag Blake’s Pride.

Ziplock sandwich bags cause russeting on my HS. I don’t bag Asian pears at all, too many. Unfortunately, we will have rain until Fri. I will spray Surround on Sat. Surround gives good protection for pears.

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I can’t stand it. They must have smelled really good!

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I bag pears at the spur, not the stem. The stem union seems kind of fragile at the bagging time.

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I bagged my few nectarines in Clemson bags. Had an awesome Arctic Jay, shockingly good and made all the work worthwhile. No winged or furry animals touched the bags. Need to spray/bag earlier as some fruit had rot and worm.

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Like they said, Timing is everything.

I have been bagging with Clemson bags for about 4 years. There were times that half of the peaches were bug-damaged when picked (many did not dropped) because the injury happened before I put bags on. Unfortunately, some entry holes were tiny and some without oozing so I missed those signs.

Clemson suggests spray insecticide and fungicide the day before bagging. This will help esp. with brown rot.

My squirrels must be more vicious than yours. They have a sense of smell and have done damage to peaches in bags. They can’t see what inside but they can smell good stuff. I hate squirrels.

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I think the squirrels and raccoons avoided these fruit as trees are in containers. They’ll figure it out next yr. I did spray Surround and spinosad before bagging. Which fungicide? I have Kocide but not sure if it’s ok to spray on fruit.

Kocide is copper hydroxide. Best spray in late fall or early spring when trees are dormant. Spraying copper when leaves are out, you need to be careful not to cause leave burn.

Fungicide can be chlorothalonil, myclobutanil or Indar. Mix it with Surround and Spinosad is fine.

Some of my pears in screen are getting bigger.


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The 2nd pic, you put screen on the whole branch?

I keep one pear per cluster, for the most part. I have not left three per cluster. I am worried, they could be too heavy or not growing big enough.

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I have a few bags like that with two-three pears. Most of these are on limbs that angle downward and resist breaking (I hope). Pears have been difficult to get the same level of success as apples so I bagged them several ways just to see if I could determine the best method (I haven’t). As you already know some pears behave badly in ziplocs (Harrow Sweet and Golden Boy),

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