Fruit Tree Overview
Fruit Tree Bloom Times
There is an order to the blossoming of fruit trees.
This has important implications in the Northeast. Earlier blooms can be killed by frosts resulting in no fruit for that year. For example, you will rarely get Apricots to fruit but have little trouble harvesting pears and apples from your trees.
There is an order to the blossoming of fruit trees.
- Apricots are the first to bloom (at the same time as forsythia and magnolias, mid to late April)
- Then sweet cherries and peaches
- Followed by plums
- Next are pears and tart cherries
- Finally, apples
This has important implications in the Northeast. Earlier blooms can be killed by frosts resulting in no fruit for that year. For example, you will rarely get Apricots to fruit but have little trouble harvesting pears and apples from your trees.
Types of Fruit Trees
We have tried many types of fruit trees, focusing on disease-resistant varieties when available.
These are the types of fruit trees that we currently grow successfully:
Apples
Asian Pears
European Pears
Paw Paws
Persimmons (will be planted in 2020)
Plums
These are the fruit trees we tried, then rejected:
Apricot - did not fruit reliably. Apricots are even more sensitive to Spring frosts than plums.
Black Cherry - birds eat them all just before they ripen.
Fig - dies back to ground level over winter, regrows, but not enough time for fruit to ripen. Near the Connecticut coastline, in a warmer hardiness zone, some people dig and bury the tree for the winter, then dig it out in the spring and successfully grow figs in Connecticut.
Mulberry - beautiful healthy tree but grows too fast and tall for our site - blocking the sun. Taste of the fruit is okay but not great. However, if the tree is kept short, it only yields a handful of fruit and is not worth the effort.
Peaches - Tried several varieties but all get the fungal disease 'Brown Rot' just before ripening. Also, plastic bags do not work with peaches - they further encourage Brown Rot. The amount of good fruit salvaged is not worth the time spent. Peach trees that I rejected and pulled out due to Brown Rot infections are: Glo Haven, Hale Haven, Harrow Diamond, Red Haven, Saturn, White Lady. Also, Elberta Peach, supposed zoned for 5-9, died over the 2014-2015 winter on our zone 6a site, indicating its hardiness rating was overly optimistic. If you know of a peach variety that will survive Brown Rot in Connecticut without sprays, please Contact me and let me know the name of the variety and your experience with it.
Fruit trees planted 3 feet apart.
I started out pruning all our fruit trees to be less than 8' high, so I do not need to climb ladders. Even standard trees that grow 30' high can be pruned to 8' if you know the secrets. These trees are self-standing and have short scaffold branches. Read this book on how to do this. "Grow a Little Fruit Tree: Simple Pruning Techniques for Small-Space, Easy-Harvest Fruit Trees"
However, since then, I discovered the tall spindle method of pruning, which offers high density, high yield plantings, with much easier pruning. Trees are planted 3 feet apart, in rows, supported by a trellis, and allowed to grow 11 feet high. Each year, 1 to 3 of the thickest branches are removed to prevent the formation of scaffold branches. Fingers are removed from each remaining branch to allow plenty of sunlight. There are excellent videos on YouTube by Dr. Terence Robinson of Cornell University describing the beauty and how-to of this procedure. This method allows very early fruiting, doubling of yields, and all fruit can be reached without a ladder. Twelve foot pressure treated trellis posts are buried 2.5 feet into the ground, by 9.5 feet high, and spaced 30 feet apart.
Commercial production is moving over to this system due to the high yields and lower labor costs. Profitability was analyzed for tree densities of 300 to 5,000 trees per acre, and 1,000 trees per acre was the sweet point. At 1,000 trees per acre, trees are spaced 3 feet apart with 11 feet between rows. As a general rule, to allow for enough sunlight, rows should be spaced approximately equal to the height of the trees in each row. So, if trees are 11 feet high, rows should be 11 feet apart.
If I were starting fresh, I would use the tall spindle training method on all my trees. Gradually, I will convert our current orchard over to this system.
How many years till you get fruit?
The answer to this questions varies wildly, depending on whether the tree it is self-rooted or grafted, and if grafted, what rootstock it was grafted onto.
To be true to type, a cutting from the original variety is either self-rooted or grafted onto a rootstock. Different rootstocks have different properties of disease-resistance, years till producing fruit, vigor, and ultimate size of the tree, if untrained. If grown from seed, the resulting cultivar is a throw of the genetic dice. Growing from seed is not a normal method of propagation, unless you are a breeder attempting to develop new varieties.
Generally, self-rooted, along with some rootstocks (like some in the M series), take 5 to 10 years to fruit. Other rootstocks (like Geneva) take 1-3 years to fruit. Also, some rootstocks give disease resistant properties to the tree, while others do not. For example, Geneva root stock is fireblight resistant, while many in the M-series are not.
So, when did our trees bear fruit?
We have had some fruit trees fruit in their second year, while two semi-dwarf apple trees, on M-series rootstock planted in 2010, still have no fruit. Others are in between. So far, the only heavy bearers are 'Kieffer' and Asian pears. Our one apple tree that was a heavy bearer ('Liberty') was killed by the Gypsy moth invasion of 2016-2017. All peach trees were heavy bearers, with vigorous healthy growth, but their fruit would mostly rot from Brown Rot fungus, so I removed them. Plum trees were heavy bearers, but most years frost killed the buds. I pulled out these Asian plums, and in 2020 am replacing them with cold-hardy hybrid crosses (American x Asian).
Regarding longevity, standard apple and pear trees live 35-40 years, while dwarf trees of the same type live just 15 to 20 years. So, there is a trade off here.
Therefore, depending on what you want, choose your rootstock carefully. The little bit of time spent in selecting the right rootstock saves you years of going down dead ends in the garden. Be aware that it often takes a lot of shopping before, or even if, you can find what you want. Do your online shopping in the early Fall. If you wait till late winter, many varieties are sold out. Bare root fruit trees are shipped for Spring planting.
Most of the fruit trees that have died in our orchard were ones on rootstocks not resistant to fireblight and scab. Accordingly, in the Northeast, these two properties are critical when deciding which fruit trees to plant. So, pick your varieties and rootstocks with a fair amount of research and thought.
For information on the properties of specific rootstocks, do an Internet search.
A good place to start for apple and pear rootstocks is Washington State University.
Starting places for stone fruit (plums, peaches, cherries) rootstocks are Dave William's Nursery and Orange Pippin.
For very early fruiting, give serious consideration to the tall-spindle pruning method described in the previous section above.
Bare Root
It is best to buy Bare Root fruit trees to plant in the Spring in colder areas like ours. These arrive looking like sticks, with roots. Buy at a reputable online nursery, so you do not get taken by some fly-by-night scam artist, who sells dead sticks. At $8 to $30 each, this is the least expensive way to go since quality bare root plants produce wonderful trees. An alternative method would be to buy live trees in pots; however, this is expensive and can cost $75 to $190 each. For the best results, follow the tree planting directions provided by the nursery, and be sure to read the book mentioned above, and see the videos on the Tall Spindle method of pruning that I linked. To select reputable online nurseries, the best source of reviews is Dave's Garden where 8,000 online gardening outlets are evaluated by buyers. If a nursery is not reputable, it will have many negative reviews, with descriptions of the issues encountered. Always check Dave's Garden first, before putting your money down.
Graft Union
Pay attention to the graft union when planting. Usually, if you plant to the same depth as it was planted in the nursery, you are okay.
Nevertheless, keep these points in mind. To stay true to type, fruit trees should not be grown from seed, but cloned by grafting a cutting (called a scion) onto a rootstock. Seeds have great genetic diversity; and a tree grown from say, a Liberty apple seed, will not look, taste, or grow like the original Liberty apple tree it came from. If you want a Liberty apple tree, it will need to be cloned from another Liberty apple tree. If you plant 1,000 Liberty apple seeds, out of this sampling, 999 of the trees that mature and bear fruit may be unsatisfactory, while 1 may end up being a new variety that you like. But, the fact of the matter remains that the new variety will be a relative of Liberty, and not a true Liberty.
As described above, various rootstocks are used with fruit trees to induce desirable characteristics in the tree, like disease resistance or dwarfing the size of the tree. In this case, we want the graft union to be above ground level, so the rootstock provides the roots and not the scion. If the graft union is buried, then roots will emerge from the scion, and the characteristics of the rootstock will be lost. All growth above this union retains the identity of the scion, and all growth below the union retains the identity of the rootstock.
There are exceptions to this. Some fruit trees like persimmon, pawpaw, and some plums are grafted onto seedlings of the respective fruits. This is done because the cuttings do not readily root on their own. These seedlings just provide roots for the cloned variety and do not impart any special characteristics; so, depending on where the graft is located, the graft can be buried with no issues. If the variety eventually sprouts its own roots, this makes no difference.
Persimmon, for example, is grafted very close to the roots of the rootstock, rather than along the trunk. Therefore, the persimmon graft can be buried. In fact, this provides an advantage in colder areas since the young graft union can be killed by winter injury if it is not buried. However, keep in mind, if the young above ground trunk dies over the winter and then grows back, what grows back may not be the desired scion variety, but the original seedling rootstock instead. In this situation, it is best to remove the rejected trunk and roots entirely; and try again by planting a new bare root tree in its place. Otherwise, (as happened with me, on one persimmon trees) you can grow a tree...only to discover, years later, that you have the wrong tree, i.e. the seedling rootstock sprouted a new trunk instead of the scion variety sprouting the trunk you wanted.
Why so many?
I have planted many varieties of fruit trees, so you may ask, why so many?
There are several reasons. First, is for the shear enjoyment of experiencing these fruit, berries, flowers, and vegetables as they grow. Second, I keep all fruit trees small - under 8' in height - since I do not want to climb ladders, and smaller trees are easier to manage. Third, the yield will be much lower on a short tree than a full-sized tree. Fourth, it is impossible for me to foresee which varieties will do best in our yard. It can take up to ten years for some variety/rootstock combinations to fruit. So, if I planted one tree, then 10 years later I discover it is not doing well or we do not like it, ten years have just been wasted. Therefore, my strategy is to plant multiple varieties; then, over time, weed out those that do not do well. Life is short; and at my age, I don't have forever to get it right.
We have already lost some fruit trees. A few died for unknown reasons, as well as from the Gypsy moth invasion of 2016-2017, while others had poor flavor and were removed.
When we began, we knew little about gardening. Unknowingly, I bought trees with rootstocks that were susceptible to disease, or fruits that were affected by New England's capricious late frosts. All was not lost since we learned from this, and now select better variety/rootstock combinations.
Wild Insects
There are millions of insect species in the world, with over 100,000 in the USA. Of these, 99% are beneficial. In the garden, these beneficial insects feed on pest insects, pollinate crops, and break down organic matter to improve soil. Let me mention just a few.
Three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants, and 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on insect pollinators.
To attract beneficial insects to your garden, plant a diversity of crops and flowers, but avoid using insecticides. If some species of insects are not present, you can buy them and introduce them to your garden. They will stay if they find plants they like. The best way, however, is to grow wildflowers. A good source is Prairie Moon Nursery. They carry seed mixtures of wildflowers. The two best mixes for gardeners are "INSECTOPIA" for predatory beneficials, and "POLLINATOR-PALOOZA" for pollinators.
Syrphid flies (aka Hover flies), which resemble small wasps but do not sting, are not only great pollinators, but their larvae eat aphids, cabbage worms, caterpillars, and mealybug.
Parasitic Wasps prey upon insect pests. These tiny, non-stinging wasps are some of the most beneficial insects in the garden, and are a great partner to the gardener and farmer. This particular category of wasps kills: aphids, beetle larvae, bag-worms, cabbage worms, Colorado potato beetle, corn ear worms, cucumber beetles, cutworms, gypsy moth caterpillars, Japanese beetles, leaf-miners, mealybugs, Mexican bean beetles, moth caterpillars, sawfly larvae, scale, squash vine borers, tent caterpillars, tobacco bud-worm, tomato horn-worm, and white flies.
A few other common beneficial insects that feed on the harmful bugs are: Assassin Bug, Big-Eyed Bug, Damsel Bug, Earwig, Green Lacewing, Ground Beetle, Lady Bug, Minute Pirate Bug, Praying Mantis, Predatory Stink Bug, Tachinid flies, etc.
Bees and other insects are needed to pollinate many of your fruits and veggies. Honeybees are well know for this, but there are many others.
Some fruits, like plums, flower a little too early, when it is a little too cold, it rains too much, or the nectar is not quite sweet enough for the fussy honeybee's taste.
Enter the wild bees, specifically the Mason bees and tiny wasps. Mason bees are active only in the Spring, at which time they pollinate fruits and berries. Often, they will find a way into your garden. If you provide homes and mud, they will stay and overwinter. Alternatively, to get started, you can buy some. If they like your yard, they will stay.
Mason bees are non-aggressive and pose no threat. Half of them do not even have stingers; and for those that do, the stinger is too tiny to be worrisome. Nevertheless, by early June, the Mason Bees die off.
Unlike honeybees, that travel for miles, mason bees travel no more than 100 yards from their birthplace - provided there are enough plants in bloom to keep them happy, along with a proper housing environment (tubes and mud) for them to reproduce offspring for the following year.
After the Mason Bees lay eggs and die off, next to arrive on the scene, to pollinate your late Spring and Summer crops are the hover flies, wasps, and hornets; in addition, are these bees: leafcutter, sunflower, squash, honey, and bumble.
Three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants, and 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on insect pollinators.
To attract beneficial insects to your garden, plant a diversity of crops and flowers, but avoid using insecticides. If some species of insects are not present, you can buy them and introduce them to your garden. They will stay if they find plants they like. The best way, however, is to grow wildflowers. A good source is Prairie Moon Nursery. They carry seed mixtures of wildflowers. The two best mixes for gardeners are "INSECTOPIA" for predatory beneficials, and "POLLINATOR-PALOOZA" for pollinators.
Syrphid flies (aka Hover flies), which resemble small wasps but do not sting, are not only great pollinators, but their larvae eat aphids, cabbage worms, caterpillars, and mealybug.
Parasitic Wasps prey upon insect pests. These tiny, non-stinging wasps are some of the most beneficial insects in the garden, and are a great partner to the gardener and farmer. This particular category of wasps kills: aphids, beetle larvae, bag-worms, cabbage worms, Colorado potato beetle, corn ear worms, cucumber beetles, cutworms, gypsy moth caterpillars, Japanese beetles, leaf-miners, mealybugs, Mexican bean beetles, moth caterpillars, sawfly larvae, scale, squash vine borers, tent caterpillars, tobacco bud-worm, tomato horn-worm, and white flies.
A few other common beneficial insects that feed on the harmful bugs are: Assassin Bug, Big-Eyed Bug, Damsel Bug, Earwig, Green Lacewing, Ground Beetle, Lady Bug, Minute Pirate Bug, Praying Mantis, Predatory Stink Bug, Tachinid flies, etc.
Bees and other insects are needed to pollinate many of your fruits and veggies. Honeybees are well know for this, but there are many others.
Some fruits, like plums, flower a little too early, when it is a little too cold, it rains too much, or the nectar is not quite sweet enough for the fussy honeybee's taste.
Enter the wild bees, specifically the Mason bees and tiny wasps. Mason bees are active only in the Spring, at which time they pollinate fruits and berries. Often, they will find a way into your garden. If you provide homes and mud, they will stay and overwinter. Alternatively, to get started, you can buy some. If they like your yard, they will stay.
Mason bees are non-aggressive and pose no threat. Half of them do not even have stingers; and for those that do, the stinger is too tiny to be worrisome. Nevertheless, by early June, the Mason Bees die off.
Unlike honeybees, that travel for miles, mason bees travel no more than 100 yards from their birthplace - provided there are enough plants in bloom to keep them happy, along with a proper housing environment (tubes and mud) for them to reproduce offspring for the following year.
After the Mason Bees lay eggs and die off, next to arrive on the scene, to pollinate your late Spring and Summer crops are the hover flies, wasps, and hornets; in addition, are these bees: leafcutter, sunflower, squash, honey, and bumble.
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Protected Housing
To help the Mason, Leafcutter, and Sunflower bees, provide them with protection, blossoms, clean housing, moist mud, and leaves.
Birds eat insects. In the past, I have found Mason Bee tubes all over the ground that had been pulled out of their enclosures. In one particular instance, I saw a woodpecker had been feeding on an exposed mason bee house. As shown in the photos, a solution is to cover the front of the mason bee house with 1/2" hardware cloth.
You can buy ready-made mason bee houses; or, if you are handy, make your own with 6" tubes, or else, drill 6" deep holes into pieces of wood (but not cedar, which naturally repels insects). Mason Bees prefer holes 5/16" in diameter, while Leafcutter Bees prefer 3/16". Also, provide a few holes slightly larger and smaller than these dimensions since one size does not fit all.
The homes need to be cleaned out annually in order to prevent a buildup of pollen mites. Your multiple options are: 1) drill out the holes, 2) replace tube inserts, or 3) drill new logs each year. If left to sit for 3 or 4 years, the pollen mite numbers will increase to the point where they will kill all the bee larvae.
These houses need to be in place for mid to late April, so that in May, the Mason bees can lay their eggs for the following year. The houses should be placed where they are several feet off the ground, and protected from rain by an overhang. Also, make sure moist mud is present. Mud is used to pack their eggs for next year. Mason Bees will not lay eggs unless mud is available near the nests. Leafcutter Bees, on the other hand, prefer to use leaves to pack their nests. Leafcutter bees emerge in June and pollinate the late spring and summer crops.
Protecting Fruit from Disease and Insects
Fruit without Pesticides
While fruit in general contain a lot of pesticides, according to the Environmental Work Group, apples contain more pesticides than most other fruits.
Some say, "You can’t grow apples and pears without lots of pesticides.” …I say, nonsense!!
If you select disease resistant trees, and enclosed each fruit in a plastic bag for the season, you eliminate airborne and insect borne diseases; and then there is no need for pesticides.
Others say, “But commercially I cannot bag fruit .” Well, keep in mind that the Japanese do, as do some West Coast organic producers. If they can do it, so can you.
The bags work well on apples, Asian pears, and European pears. I have been bagging our apples and pears for several years, and produce picture perfect fruit with no pesticides, no fungicides, and no herbicides. See the photos of our apples and pears.
On peaches, plastic bags encourage rot, so bags are not useful.
On initial tries, I discovered bags do not work on plums because the stem is too short, and it is difficult to use a twist tie without the plum detaching from the tree. However, I have recently learned of exclusion sleeves, made of netting that will slide over a plum branch to protect all plums on that branch. Also, the edges of a bag could be extended over the plum and the branch, and then tied above the branch. Green Harvest of Australia offers a full array of products to protect fruit trees. Their website is quite interesting. Unfortunately, Green Harvest does not ship outside of Australia, and, as of yet, I have found no equivalent American company, who offers a similar array of products.
Here is my procedure: Right after petal drop, I spray with Surround WP - a non-toxic kaolin clay. This white powder is mixed in water, and sprayed with a backpack sprayer specifically designed for wettable powders. I repeat this spray after each rain, until mid-June. Then, I thin and bag each fruit with bags and twist ties.
The Surround WP discourages the Plum Curculio from laying eggs in the fruit. It reduces infection rates from 95% to about 10% in your crop. Then, when I thin, I remove infected fruit as part of the thinning process, and bag the remaining good fruit - which is about the size of a cherry at this point. Infected fruit is easy to spot. There is a half-moon crescent cut in the fruit, where the eggs were deposited. From this point forward, no further spraying with Surround WP is needed, and the fruit stays bagged until harvest.
I have also read anecdotal evidence of planting garlic near fruit trees since Plum Curculio supposedly do not like the smell of garlic. I will need to try this as an added measure since some years it rains more than others, and the fruit is unprotected during and after these rains.
Here’s where I buy my 7”x 9” polyethylene bags - cost $23 per thousand, PaperMart
Here are the twist ties - cost $4 per 2,000, PaperMart
Besides plastic bags, farmers have used Organza bags and soft-fabric bags. In Japan, soft-fabric bags are used on a commercial scale to protect their fruit crops. I plan to experiment with both these types bags in 2020, to see which give the best results.
References:
While fruit in general contain a lot of pesticides, according to the Environmental Work Group, apples contain more pesticides than most other fruits.
Some say, "You can’t grow apples and pears without lots of pesticides.” …I say, nonsense!!
If you select disease resistant trees, and enclosed each fruit in a plastic bag for the season, you eliminate airborne and insect borne diseases; and then there is no need for pesticides.
Others say, “But commercially I cannot bag fruit .” Well, keep in mind that the Japanese do, as do some West Coast organic producers. If they can do it, so can you.
The bags work well on apples, Asian pears, and European pears. I have been bagging our apples and pears for several years, and produce picture perfect fruit with no pesticides, no fungicides, and no herbicides. See the photos of our apples and pears.
On peaches, plastic bags encourage rot, so bags are not useful.
On initial tries, I discovered bags do not work on plums because the stem is too short, and it is difficult to use a twist tie without the plum detaching from the tree. However, I have recently learned of exclusion sleeves, made of netting that will slide over a plum branch to protect all plums on that branch. Also, the edges of a bag could be extended over the plum and the branch, and then tied above the branch. Green Harvest of Australia offers a full array of products to protect fruit trees. Their website is quite interesting. Unfortunately, Green Harvest does not ship outside of Australia, and, as of yet, I have found no equivalent American company, who offers a similar array of products.
Here is my procedure: Right after petal drop, I spray with Surround WP - a non-toxic kaolin clay. This white powder is mixed in water, and sprayed with a backpack sprayer specifically designed for wettable powders. I repeat this spray after each rain, until mid-June. Then, I thin and bag each fruit with bags and twist ties.
The Surround WP discourages the Plum Curculio from laying eggs in the fruit. It reduces infection rates from 95% to about 10% in your crop. Then, when I thin, I remove infected fruit as part of the thinning process, and bag the remaining good fruit - which is about the size of a cherry at this point. Infected fruit is easy to spot. There is a half-moon crescent cut in the fruit, where the eggs were deposited. From this point forward, no further spraying with Surround WP is needed, and the fruit stays bagged until harvest.
I have also read anecdotal evidence of planting garlic near fruit trees since Plum Curculio supposedly do not like the smell of garlic. I will need to try this as an added measure since some years it rains more than others, and the fruit is unprotected during and after these rains.
Here’s where I buy my 7”x 9” polyethylene bags - cost $23 per thousand, PaperMart
Here are the twist ties - cost $4 per 2,000, PaperMart
Besides plastic bags, farmers have used Organza bags and soft-fabric bags. In Japan, soft-fabric bags are used on a commercial scale to protect their fruit crops. I plan to experiment with both these types bags in 2020, to see which give the best results.
References:
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This shows how an apple has grown after sitting in a plastic bag for two months. I place slits in each of the bottom two corners of the bag so rain water can drain.
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In 2020, I am going to try some Organza bags to see how they compare with plastic bags for insect and disease prevention.
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Fabric Bags are used commercially in Japan to protect fruit from disease and insects.
These are available on Amazon.
The goals of experimenting with various bags is to find the least expensive bag that will best protect against diseases, insects and birds; yet not interfere with fruit ripening.
Our fencing system keeps out deer, opossum, rabbits, raccoons, and woodchucks, but not birds, chipmunks, squirrels, insects, or disease.
Netting helps prevent bird pilferage, while fences help with ward off other critters; but not all areas can be netted or fenced, like on the grape arbor.
Except on the nut trees, I have not had enough trouble with squirrels and chipmunks to worry about; so I ignore them.
I already know that plastic bags work great on apples and pears to reduce disease and insect damage. The only drawback to the plastic bags, with twist-ties, is that it is quite time consuming if you are bagging hundreds of individual fruits/branches. Using the drawstrings on the Organza bags would cut down bagging time considerably; however, I am wondering whether insect may just lay their eggs through the netting, and airborne diseases might easily settle on the fruit through the netting. These hypotheses needs to be tested.
I have also discovered, from experience, that plastic vented clamshells do stop raccoons and birds on the grape arbor; but vented clamshells do not stop wasps or Asian Fruit Flies (SWD).
In 2020, I will try unvented clamshells in an attempt to stop the insect issue. When fitting the portion of a cane that holds a grape bunch into the plastic clamshell, part of the plastic needs to be cut away to seat the vine. What is needed, is to devise a way to seal the entry and exit points of the vine. Even a tiny space will allow entry of insects. To close the gaps, one would need putty, glue, or sealant that would not harm the grapes. I prefer something non-toxic. If you have any ideas on what might help solve this problem, please let me know by emailing me through the Contact section of this website. The first thing I intend to try, in the 2020 season, is to apply a non-toxic, non-drying, modeling clay made with wax and oil. What i need to determine is whether or not this mixture will I will wash away during rains, or sags during hot weather. A glue gun would work great, but that would likely kill that grape cane. I will also try stuffing the gap with some type of cloth or netting.
So far, I have experimented with inexpensive paper bags, plastic bags, and clamshells. I am hoping to find sources where bags could be purchased in larger quantities, and at better prices.
In 2020, I will test the other types of bags, shown above. Surprisingly, paper bags hold up quite well for the entire season, despite our frequent rains. They do not stop raccoons; but, they do stop birds, as well as most insects. The raccoons just rip open the paper bags and eat the grapes. Additionally, I need to observe whether paper bags can stop the Asian fruit fly (SWD) infestation, or if bags will affect fruit ripening process. If the paper bags do not hinder ripening, or cause rotting of the grapes, paper bags could be used in the fenced areas, where raccoons are excluded.
Plastic bags worked well for many years, and still do, on apples and pears; but the arrival of the SWD showed their weakness when it came to their ineffectual protection of grapes against infestation by these fruit flies. In 2019, I observed grapes infected with SWD larvae. They crawled into the slits placed along the two bottom corners of the bags that cover the grapes. Please note that these slits are necessary to allow rainwater to escape. Otherwise, the bags fill up with water, like balloons; I have seen this happen on bags where I forgot to cut the slits.
In 2019, I observed something else. Plastic bags appear to delay ripening of many grape cultivars by about one month; but they do protect the grapes from some diseases. On two cultivars, plastic bags quadrupled the size of the grapes (Concord Seedless and Somerset Seedless). This was an unexpected finding. For other varieties, the berries did very well in plastic bags (Jubilee of Swenson, L’ Acadie Blanc, Marechal Foch, Oberlin Noir, Petite Pearl, Solaris, Somerset Seedless, Steuben, Wine King, Worden). On still others, they rotted the grapes and/or caused botrytis (Frontenac, Jukka, St Vincent). However, the issue with plastic bags is the SWD, that get inside the plastic bags through the drainage slits on the bottom of the bags.
The fabric bags, Organza bags, and net bags look promising.
The drawstring and flexible fabric make the Organza bags the quickest to tie around the fruit, saving a lot of time. Whether the insects and disease will do damage through the holes in the netting remains to be seen.
The net bags are sturdier and more durable than the Organza bags, but are more difficult to get a good seal due to the stiffness of the fabric. The drawstrings cannot close the top opening completely. This sealing issue may not sufficiently exclude the SWD.
The fabric bags appear to be very good. These are used commercially in Japan. I do not think insects will be able to eat or lay eggs thru this fabric, as they might with the Organza and net bags. Also, they should exclude disease - maybe. The green fabric bags are thicker than the white ones, meaning birds and squirrels will have a tougher time getting to the fruit. Also, the white ones have a thin twist tie vs. a thick sturdy twist tie on the green bags. However, with thinner fabric, when bunched at the top, the white bags yields a better seal, making it less likely the SWD will gain access. On balance, the white bags appear superior. This needs to be evaluated by testing in 2020.
Test trials, in 2020, should tell the tale, and will hopefully reveal which are best suited for the job. My initial guess is the unvented plastic clamshell will work best on the grape arbor against raccoons, if modeling clay can maintain a good seal against the SWD. In the fenced areas, the white fabric bag may work best.
On grapes and berries, the biggest scourge to overcome is the tiny Asian Fruit Fly (SWD).
Our fencing system keeps out deer, opossum, rabbits, raccoons, and woodchucks, but not birds, chipmunks, squirrels, insects, or disease.
Netting helps prevent bird pilferage, while fences help with ward off other critters; but not all areas can be netted or fenced, like on the grape arbor.
Except on the nut trees, I have not had enough trouble with squirrels and chipmunks to worry about; so I ignore them.
I already know that plastic bags work great on apples and pears to reduce disease and insect damage. The only drawback to the plastic bags, with twist-ties, is that it is quite time consuming if you are bagging hundreds of individual fruits/branches. Using the drawstrings on the Organza bags would cut down bagging time considerably; however, I am wondering whether insect may just lay their eggs through the netting, and airborne diseases might easily settle on the fruit through the netting. These hypotheses needs to be tested.
I have also discovered, from experience, that plastic vented clamshells do stop raccoons and birds on the grape arbor; but vented clamshells do not stop wasps or Asian Fruit Flies (SWD).
In 2020, I will try unvented clamshells in an attempt to stop the insect issue. When fitting the portion of a cane that holds a grape bunch into the plastic clamshell, part of the plastic needs to be cut away to seat the vine. What is needed, is to devise a way to seal the entry and exit points of the vine. Even a tiny space will allow entry of insects. To close the gaps, one would need putty, glue, or sealant that would not harm the grapes. I prefer something non-toxic. If you have any ideas on what might help solve this problem, please let me know by emailing me through the Contact section of this website. The first thing I intend to try, in the 2020 season, is to apply a non-toxic, non-drying, modeling clay made with wax and oil. What i need to determine is whether or not this mixture will I will wash away during rains, or sags during hot weather. A glue gun would work great, but that would likely kill that grape cane. I will also try stuffing the gap with some type of cloth or netting.
So far, I have experimented with inexpensive paper bags, plastic bags, and clamshells. I am hoping to find sources where bags could be purchased in larger quantities, and at better prices.
In 2020, I will test the other types of bags, shown above. Surprisingly, paper bags hold up quite well for the entire season, despite our frequent rains. They do not stop raccoons; but, they do stop birds, as well as most insects. The raccoons just rip open the paper bags and eat the grapes. Additionally, I need to observe whether paper bags can stop the Asian fruit fly (SWD) infestation, or if bags will affect fruit ripening process. If the paper bags do not hinder ripening, or cause rotting of the grapes, paper bags could be used in the fenced areas, where raccoons are excluded.
Plastic bags worked well for many years, and still do, on apples and pears; but the arrival of the SWD showed their weakness when it came to their ineffectual protection of grapes against infestation by these fruit flies. In 2019, I observed grapes infected with SWD larvae. They crawled into the slits placed along the two bottom corners of the bags that cover the grapes. Please note that these slits are necessary to allow rainwater to escape. Otherwise, the bags fill up with water, like balloons; I have seen this happen on bags where I forgot to cut the slits.
In 2019, I observed something else. Plastic bags appear to delay ripening of many grape cultivars by about one month; but they do protect the grapes from some diseases. On two cultivars, plastic bags quadrupled the size of the grapes (Concord Seedless and Somerset Seedless). This was an unexpected finding. For other varieties, the berries did very well in plastic bags (Jubilee of Swenson, L’ Acadie Blanc, Marechal Foch, Oberlin Noir, Petite Pearl, Solaris, Somerset Seedless, Steuben, Wine King, Worden). On still others, they rotted the grapes and/or caused botrytis (Frontenac, Jukka, St Vincent). However, the issue with plastic bags is the SWD, that get inside the plastic bags through the drainage slits on the bottom of the bags.
The fabric bags, Organza bags, and net bags look promising.
The drawstring and flexible fabric make the Organza bags the quickest to tie around the fruit, saving a lot of time. Whether the insects and disease will do damage through the holes in the netting remains to be seen.
The net bags are sturdier and more durable than the Organza bags, but are more difficult to get a good seal due to the stiffness of the fabric. The drawstrings cannot close the top opening completely. This sealing issue may not sufficiently exclude the SWD.
The fabric bags appear to be very good. These are used commercially in Japan. I do not think insects will be able to eat or lay eggs thru this fabric, as they might with the Organza and net bags. Also, they should exclude disease - maybe. The green fabric bags are thicker than the white ones, meaning birds and squirrels will have a tougher time getting to the fruit. Also, the white ones have a thin twist tie vs. a thick sturdy twist tie on the green bags. However, with thinner fabric, when bunched at the top, the white bags yields a better seal, making it less likely the SWD will gain access. On balance, the white bags appear superior. This needs to be evaluated by testing in 2020.
Test trials, in 2020, should tell the tale, and will hopefully reveal which are best suited for the job. My initial guess is the unvented plastic clamshell will work best on the grape arbor against raccoons, if modeling clay can maintain a good seal against the SWD. In the fenced areas, the white fabric bag may work best.
On grapes and berries, the biggest scourge to overcome is the tiny Asian Fruit Fly (SWD).