Re- evaluating bagging fruit

I have two branches of Seckel, grafted on KG. It sets fruit for the first time this year, so many fruit.

I thinned a lot off but I think I still leave too many on. Maybe, I need to thin more off. Seckel rfruit tend to be small, right?

2 Likes

Very small but sweet and very crunchy!

I forgot to mention that I have a smaller unknown Asian pear that has a few that was bagged. It didn’t handle being ziploc bagged very well. Grafted in this year is Dripping Honey which I think will be another really good tasting Asian pear.

1 Like

Have I read your comments correctly? Apples are bagged with ziploc baggies, pears (including Asian pears) are bagged with screening material, and peaches are bagged with a cloth bag.

@Anne,
Apples are bagged in plastic ziplock bags.

Asian pears unbagged, too many of them. They also grow fast enough to squish bug eggs deposited in the fruit resulting in little to no damage internally. However, if you have a stink bug issue, you may need to bag or apply Surround spray,

Euro pears, I bag with tougher nylon bags. Squirrels can cause less damage to pears in this type of bag. You can bag any pears with plastic ziplock bags but squirrels bite through and take the fruit with them easily.
I have only a few Euro and I like them so I protect them better.

Peaches need max protection as their skin is so soft. Once pests lay eggs inside, most fruit will be ruined. Clemson paper bags or Japansese paper bags work very well if you apply to “clean” fruit when they are small. You need to spray peaches with insecticide (or Surround) and funcicide a couple of times including the day before you bag. If you do that and bag clean fruit, the ripened peaches are clean.

Plums are like peaches, easily damaged by pests. They are small and abundant. I bag them with sleeves made of either window screen or perforated bread bags.

A lot of work and it may not work well if your timing is off (bugs already attacked the fruit but the damage is too small for you to notice it). That’s why many don’t do bagging.

4 Likes

Thank you for the clarification. My peaches and asian pears were planted last fall or this spring. I’m just trying to get it straight so that I can add the necessary items to one of my ‘famous’ lists. :wink:

1 Like

Anne,
If you only have a few trees and can keep them under 10-12’, you will have no issue with bagging.

Have you seen Scott Smith’s low impact spray schedule? That is a very good start if you want to grow fruit with less chemical.

3 Likes

Thanks. I will read Scott’s spray schedule. I really appreciate both of you sharing your experience and expertise.

3 Likes

Anytime. I’ve made so many mistakes (and still do) so I want to help new growers avoid those.

Scott’s low impact spray schedule is under the Guides category.

2 Likes

Lol I have 1 plum left. Wildlife jumped over my electric fence one night and ate them all. Then, it screamed in agony on the way out; left me with 1! I’m not bagging that one. So exhausting!

1 Like

Well, there is the first for everything.

Our weather has been hot lately, mid - high 80 and a few days in the 90’s.

Today I saw some apples in bags got sun burned. This is the first time my bagged apples got it. Those burned spots are the area facing the sun.

5 Likes

They looked cooked!

My apistar apples got cooked too

1 Like

Note that Ortho versions of chlorothalonil (Disease B Gone, Max Garden Disease Control, etc) have labels that say “Do not apply between fruit formation and harvest” for peach, nectarine, apricot, cherry, plum. I don’t know about other brands.

1 Like

Yes, chlorothalonil spray can be used up to shuck split on peaches because it has long PHI (60 days). That’s why some of us do not use it even though this fungicide is effective, easy to find and cheap. Thanks for the reminder.

1 Like

This is part of pet proof screen bag that was used to protect fruits on the tree. The fruits inside must taste very good for the squirrel to make such efforts to dig the fruits out .

4 Likes

Your fruit vs your neighbor’s squirrel? :grin:

They can be very determined and feisty to get to our fruit.

2 Likes

There were neighbor’s squirrels. But they are all mine now😩

4 Likes

Annie,
What kind of plum was that?
Now I wonder if my neighborhood’s squirrels will do the same thing to my “screened-in” plums. This is my first year using it.

@Auburn - have your window screen material ever been chewed?

1 Like

I had one bag chewed that was near the ground. It had three pears in it. They got one and chewed on another one. One was left in the bag.

2 Likes