Geez, putting footies on crabapples sounds like a very tedious proposition.

I've seen recommendations anywhere from marble to apricot size for when to bag.

I'm think it depends on how much insect pressure you have and how early and whether you want to use sprays or other means to deal with those until the bags can go on.

I started bagging my Honeycrisp a week ago and posted about it (with pictures) in the paper bag thread on this forum. Folks from Gardenweb thought it was too early.

Since then only 1 apple that was bagged has dropped. On one tree I only bagged about half the apples. Of the ones that weren't bagged a number of them have already developed blemishes so I'll remove those and bag the rest of the good ones this weekend.

You'll probably want to thin at the same time you bag.

I put footies on my apples and pears last spring. Some mature pears are falling off now, and I find a hole in the footie, just under it a hole in the fruit with frass surrouding it, and in the few i have cut open, bug trails. I thought the bugs were not going to chew thru the footies. Any thoughts? cb