I had tried bird netting on or apple trees about 8-10 years ago with mixed results. They did keep the birds out (not from the outside fruits but from all the rest), but they were expensive, hard to put up, and the wind forced them into the branches making them almost impossible to remove. To say nothing of several dead birds a day from getting themselves caught in the netting.
Well I am thinking about bird netting again, not for the apples, but for some smaller cherry trees (and Evans and some Carmine Jewels) and to see if we can’t get some service berries this year. It seems that some folks here have had better luck with bird netting, and I wanted to ask folks which brand/types they like, and if they ended up catching as many birds as I had experienced?
I have used tulle. It does not have a lot of the drawbacks that ‘bird netting’ has: no dead birds, and it’s easy to remove, even from raspberries. Bees do sometimes get trapped in it because they can’t find their way out, though they aren’t stuck in the fabric. Unfortunately, green and other colors have become twice the price of ‘ivory’ (or white) which is kind of gaudy. It comes in 54" and 108" widths by 40 or 50 yards. I suppose polyester would be the best for UV resistance but there doesn’t seem to be much offered in 108".