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| Photo by Joyce D'Agostino |
Earlier this year, I began an experiment using heavy duty netted tree bags to try to preserve our apple harvests. Refer to the original blog dated 6/28/2021. In the past, we have had the entire crop of any tree fruit quickly wiped out by squirrels and also significant damage from birds.
We are now at the end of the season and this blog will report on what worked and what didn’t using this method.
If you plan to prune your trees it is often best to do it in the very early spring before bud break and flowering and well before the tree sets fruit and bags are installed (see attached publication on pruning).
To begin, two apple trees were netted and left a third one uncovered as the control. As the summer season progressed it was quickly noted that the unnetted tree had all of the fruit removed by squirrels continually during the summer and all fruit was removed by late July into early August. The trees that were netted retained their fruit and most were intact with little to no wind or hail damage.
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| Photo by Joyce D'Agostino |
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| Photo by Joyce D'Agostino |
One issue that occurred was even though the netting seemed durable, when a few branches snapped and caused sharp edges, which did poke through the netting. The squirrels immediately tried to access any fruit close to the damage and any damage on the fruit attracted insects. A section of hail netting had to be placed over the damaged spots to protect those areas. There were a few apples that fell during the season which is typical for any tree fruit but the majority of what was on the netted trees remained until they were ripened.
Once the netting was removed, all of the apples must be removed at that time. Fruit remaining on the tree for a day or two unprotected would have allowed the pests to remove the fruit or begin their damage.
As shown in the pictures, the apples were able to develop into mature fruit and ripen. There was little to no damage such as bruising from wind or hail and no insect damage such as worms in the apples. For the most part, this was a success and allowed us to finally have a harvest of fruit from our trees. During the season additional hand watering was done about once a week to ensure that the trees were getting enough moisture, especially during the very hot weather.
There were a few additional issues observed that should be taken into consideration when using this method:
1. The netting can be fairly heavy and large, and it usually requires at least two people to position the netting and to remove it from medium to large trees.
2. Right plant, wrong place – the term “right plant in the right place” is important for anything you grow in your garden or landscape. In this case, the former homeowner had planted each of these fruit trees very close to a fence and not at the best planting depth. Not only did the fence side of the tree fail to get proper sunlight to develop and ripen the fruit, but the fence also allowed squirrels to easily access the trees.
3. We moved into this home in 2018 and asked the former homeowner about the variety of the apples and other fruit trees planted. He did not record the names or types even though some were recent plantings. It is important and helpful to know what variety of any fruit you are growing, since some mature at different times of the season. There are sites online which may assist with identification such as this one, where you use a step-by-step key and input the characteristics of the tree and fruit to try to identify the variety: http://www.applename.com/id.aspx. Without knowing the type of apple for example that you have makes it more difficult to know the expected harvest time, how big the tree may become, the color of the fruit when it is mature and the best use for that particular apple.
Overall having fruit to harvest was very rewarding but it also took some work using the tree netting bags. Just by observing the control tree that was unprotected proved that any fruit that developed during the season never made it to maturity and were quickly removed by squirrels, birds, wind and hail.
The following publications give information on preserving your harvests and also the best way to plant and care for any fruit trees for your landscape:
