I bagged apples for the first time last year. I suffered some of the same rot problems you mentioned. I put this down in part to very heavy rains in spring here in MD and the ventilation problems noted below. I had only minimal earwig problems. There was some dropping of bagged apples, but not a lot.

I only got a couple of dozen apples of two trees, but this was their first year of fruit and I thinned the crop considerably. The rot problem seems to be the biggest concern. I think one factor that contributed to it was that the corners of the plastic bags that I had cut off for ventilation tended to stick together. I plan to try cutting off the whole bottom on some bags this year and see if it makes a difference. Overall though I was happy with the performance of the bags.

tcstoer,

I had nearly identical experiences both with the footies and the ziplock bags. The exception being that your earwig damage looks greater than mine.

I only did maybe 40 apples though so maybe I didn't see the full range of conditions.

I got a lot of splits and drops from my honeycrisp. It probably didn't help that I left most of them on the tree too long.

Some of the splits still left half an apple or more that was good, but of course needed to eaten immediately.

I still think it beats spraying, but didn't work nearly as well for me as it did Jellyman.

Maybe its the climate, or perhaps its the sprays he does leading up to bagging. I did no sprays whatsoever last year.

Its funny because speakers from the Home Orchard Society say to leave the earwigs alone because they are beneficials.

Here in RI, the few apples I bagged came through just fine. The only think I had on the apples was just a touch of sooty blotch & flyspec. Never had any earwigs. Most of the apples I didn't bag were lost to insects and other things. All my apples will be getting bagged this year, and we'll see how they do.
-Glenn

I put several hundred Gala and Fuji apples in footies. There was minor coddling moth damage but we have few CM here so not sure the footie helped at all. But they made a huge difference in bird damage, a few % loss vs nearly 100% without footies. There were no other problems here to test the footies against.

I actually put maybe 60-100 footies on cherries, my entire crop. The Coons got them all in one night. But no bird damage!! I guess the fact I'd go too such trouble shows how hard it is to grow cherries here. I've eaten a half dozen in 5 yrs on 13 trees.

The Fruitnut

Hey fruitnut: seen any coons wearing hoisery this winter?

Guess i'm in a sweet-spot, no CM damage, dropped fruit or earwigs and only on split in the tippy-top of the tree. The bags had condensation in them all summer and some had puddled water against the fruit but all was well.

On the peaches, footies worked great, no insect damage at all. I noticed on one area where some bird went down three peaches in a row pecking at them and finally gave up. HAA!
{{gwi:62387}}

Michael357, that is a thing of beauty! I'm feeling greedy for more photographs. Please post them if you have them?

The new product Sluggo Plus is supposed to kill earwigs in addition to snails. Since I also had earwigs moving into my fruit (mostly peaches) I plan on putting it around the bottom of the trees, so hopefully they will eat it, get full and croak before they crawl up the trunks. (It is very expensive, however, much more than plain ol' Sluggo)

Carla in Sac

How does codling moth get into a tied up footie?

Man I can't beleive the footies stopped the birds for yall. I didnt do well with the footies last year. I applied them too late to stop the ofm. They had already attacked when I footied them and they slowly blead to death. And as for my fine feathered friends they simply laughed as the took the whole peach footie and all into the sky. Darn grackles. This year I'll footie sooner and use my bird net again, well thats if my peaches bloom this year with this lack of winter here.

scaper

Thanks,
Drew

> How does codling moth get into a tied up footie?

They don't, they just lay their eggs right thru, or on top, of the nylon mesh. I don't know which. Either way, the larvae are able to make their way into the apple itself. On their way out you can clearly see a hole in the footie where they chew right thru to get out. It's almost comical to see an exit hole in the apple perfectly lined up with a chew-hole in the footie.

Neither footies nor plastic bags stopped birds from trying to get my apples. However, it did prevent them from actually managing to eat any bits of the apples. The can peck at the apple, but they can't get any pieces out to eat. Hopefully, they'll learn and move on.

tcstoehr,

"Either way, the [Codling moth] larvae are able to make their way into the apple itself."

I'm so grateful for your post. I have always wondered how the mesh stocking could prevent CM, but now my doubts are confirmed.

May I ask for your recommendations now that you've tried these socks? Would lures work well enough? I've heard the Japanese use paper bags, but wouldn't they disintegrate in the rain?

There's got to be a way to stop these little critters!

milehighgirl, I have no idea how well lures work. But I have tried the Japanese paper apple bags, but on only a few apples. They worked better than footies or Ziplocs for me, but with such limited trials, I can't really say too much for sure. And it seems that earwigs would be just as bad of a problem, but I don't remember that. They did hold up to the rain, but we have quite a dry summer where I live. I do have a couple hundred of those paper apple bags in a box in my garden shed. Maybe I'll drag them out this year. They are much more expensive and difficult to install than either footies or ziplocs. But I believe they actually work the best, based only on my limited experience.

I used ziploc bags last year and I also had trouble with earwigs on some of my apples. I think I had more than I would have without the bags and the apples that were left alone were perfect. The earwig apples though were ruined and inedible. I'm going to try cutting bigger corners off this year as I think the trouble was that some of them the corners stuck together and there wasn't enough drainage.

tcstoehr,

Thanks for the input. Do you have paper bags specially made for apples? I have not seen these.

Would Tangle Trap at the base of the tree prevent earwigs?

The bags made especially for apples are talked about here:
http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef218.asp
among other places.

Somewhere rattling around in the back of my mind is the thought that what you have under the base of the tree may be an attractive site for earwigs to hang out when they aren't busy in the apple bags. Maybe it was bark chip mulch or carpet, I don't remember. If the conditions under the tree aren't conducive to the pest being there, it won't be.

But of course you have to mulch, Michael. Think of the health of the tree and its improved immune system, the savings in water and fertilizer, the moderation of soil temperature swings.

Hey Drew, when did you cover your peaches, last year? because I'm thinking of covering mine this year, in fact not 5 minutes ago I ordered some footies, I have Oriental Fruit Moth problems getting into my peaches and was wondering when would be the right time to cover them.
Any advise is welcome.
Thanks Rafael

Most certainly Glib, but I switched from bark mulch to fresh lawn clippings. Never saw any earwigs in the bagged apples of sockied peaches...yet. I heaped the clippings on by the half-foot all summer long. Interestingly enough, by early November the soil critters had decomposed it down to nearly nothing.

Rafael:

The time to install footies on peaches is right after you have done you final thinning, and the fruits are spaced at roughly 7-8 inches apart. Peaches have a serious tendency to overset, and I thin mine in at least 3 stages, each time selecting the largest, fastest-growing fruits that are undamaged by insects or mildew marks. Once you are satisfied that the thinning is completed, bag the selected peaches immediately. Tie the footie over the twig or branch with a single tie, which will hold it well but make it possible to remove easily. If you put a real knot on these things, you will be cutting them off when picking time arrives. And when it does arrive, remember that the footie will hold the peach on the tree even when it is dead, dead ripe.

You don't say where you are located (and please do), but in many localities plum curculio can be more of a threat on small, developing fruits than oriental fruit moth. But the PC is gone soon, leaving the field to OFM. If you can't get the peaches up to bagging size without serious damage to the larger fruits that you want to retain, it may be necessary to spray once of twice with permethrin or imidan, both of which are effective against PC.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Hello Rafael,
I'm sorry I missed your message. Thank you for answering for me Don as truthfully I would not have known how to answer. Last year I had an attack of the moths for the first time ever. I noticed them bleeding to death and reactivley tried to footie them. As I learned that is way to late. This year I hope to be better ready. Hey Don if I may ask you a question, what precautions would you reccomend when spraying permethrin? Gloves, glasses, respirator, space suit?

Thanks,
Scaper

Scaper:

I do use sunglasses, but nothing else special.

But I am very, very careful about spray technique, and the weather conditions for spraying. My principal backpack sprayer, a Swissmex SP-2, has a 66 inch brass wand extension, which I have stiffened with bamboo and filament tape. Even when spraying a 10-12 foot tree I can stand back well out of range of spray fallout.

I look for dead calm to spray, but if there is even the slightest breeze, I stay upwind. With the extremely long wand, I can usually reach both sides of a tree without getting below the spray. I never spray upward and stand beneath it.

The long wand is awkward when working in close quarters, but my trees are pretty well spaced apart. It is also a little heavy because of all that weight hanging out there while I hold the spray lever. It is a compromise.

Most of my trees, including the stone fruits, are semi-dwarf size. You might be able to achieve the same objective with a shorter wand if you have smaller trees.

I am not particularly concerned about the toxicity of permethrin should I get a bit in the face. But I also use Imidan and am very careful with that.

Once you see the little blobs of pectin on developing peaches, it is over and time to thin them off, leaving only the peaches without blobs. Then spray or bag them before the blobs appear again.

For the past 8 years, I have kept a flock of small ducks (Call Ducks) based in a pond in the backyard. Ducks are reportedly very sensitive to chemicals, to the extent that their feed should contain no antibiotics or additives. I scoot the ducks away when actually spraying, but when I am finished the ducks resume their foraging throughout the orchard, and I have never seen a sick duck as a result. You could say the ducks are the canary in my coal mine. Healthy ducks, healthy environment. They have begun their spring laying now, and you have never eaten better eggs in your life, though they are on the small side.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Thanks for the wonderful advice. Great idea on the ducks. I'll bet the eggs are great.

Thanks again,
Scaper

I was at an apple bagging class which taught us to staple the bag at the corner. This method, earwigs get in the bag because there is quite an opening around the stem. I have another method of bagging with ziplock bags, no stapling and very little space left around the stem. I average 80-100 apples per hour. Large apples like the Wolf River are not restricted growth because they aren't in the corner of the bag.
I am happy to share this method with everyone interested.

I'm interested, and I'm sure there are others on this forum who are interested too. How about posting your procedure right here? Thanks for sharing.