Several people have chimed in about when precisely is the correct date, temperature, humidity, and other data required in order to know when to put ziplocs, footies, or paper bags on Asian pears, apples, etc.
I usually have been doing it by size. Asian pears get big first so I bag them first. When they're about as big as a marble, I can just start to bag them. Some apples with small stems are tough. I've even started bagging my McIntosh with two or three apples in a footie, so I will add more later. I'm sure to cover them from dreaded codling moth and apple maggot while they grow. When the two or three get too big for one footie, I'll switch it onto one and put another footie on each of the others but at least they've been covered the whole time.
I also just find bagging by size convenient for me. I'm sure the bugs are more attracted to the bigger apples and get to them when they're bigger. Due to crabapples, early and late apples, etc. bagging them all at the same time is logistically difficult if you grow many types of apples and other fruit.
John S
PDX OR
Dear John S
Can you tell me how your apple bagging experiment went last year? I have a 7-year old macintosh apple that has just begun to blossom profusely and like the idea of using "footies." to keep maggots et cetera away. But I don't want to thin the blossoms down to one per stem as a few forums have recommended -- were you successful bagging two or three apples and switching? And how do you keep the footies on the stem?
many thanks!
Hello Apple espalier,
I just wrote an article about it for the Pome News. To read all about it, become a member. To get a short version: sox and ziplocs worked great. paper bags mostly blew off. Microhole fresh plastic bread bags worked well in some applications, worse in others.
John S
PDX OR
PS I love homegrown McIntosh apples!
Here is another idea:
One can bag the apples at different times and see for themselves how effective the different times are for putting on the foot sox.
In my opinion, one of the great privileges of this idea of using foot sox is that it loans itself to experimentation to really see at what times the bugs actually visit a tree in the particular micro-climate one lives in. In other words, if one is willing, this tedious "foot sox" method has hidden genius in that it can give more information to the homeowner.
This year, I am putting twist-ties to seal up the foot sox and I am using four different colors on SOME of the trees: red, white, yellow, and (standard) green.
I might use the red twist-tie for the footies applied the first week of June, the yellow for the second week, white for third week, etc. etc.
This way, when Harvest season comes, I will have a better idea as to just when exactly I needed to put the foot sox on to protect against the codling moth (and I am using kaolin clay on the foot sox as well).......to me, the timing is important only for the codling moth.....and I will see how badly codling moth affected the apples at different times by noting the twist tie color that was used on the foot sox.
The apple maggot fly, or the bug where the foot sox really work so very well on.....is a long long ways from flying right now.....and all the foot sox will protect against that bug. It is the codling moth that we need to have more data as to timing and how to protect, in my opinion......and the color-coded twist ties will give me an experimental tool to use on some of the trees in different parts of Seattle.....
(for those wishing to ensure complete protection, the best strategy is not to do what I am doing but simply cover the apples as soon as they can, or when they feel most confidant....)
Idyllwild
simplepress
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
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