Bagging Apples: wait for fruit drop or bag now?

16 years ago

Hi,

I planted 3 apple trees in 2005, and all three have produced apples this year. The apples are now about 1" in diameter, and we have not had the fruit drop yet.

I'm planning to put plastic bags on the apples to protect them from insects/birds [I've done research on this] and to avoid using pesticides, but am not sure how long I should wait.

Questions:

1.

Does anyone have an idea of when I can expect the normal fruit drop? I live in Albuquerque and the varieties of apples are all late-producing [Newtown Pippin, Hauer Pippin, and Arkansas Black]

2

Instead of waiting until fruit drop, should I just thin some of the fruit now and put bags on apples I'd like to keep? [it won't be many, because the branches are still so small they won't be able to support much weight].

Thanks in advance for your advice

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Comments (7)

tcstoehr
16 years ago
Thin the apples by hand and bag the rest. Now. Don't wait for fruit drop, the Coddling Moth will not be so patient.
Thin to one fruit per cluster. You can be pretty sure that the largest apple in each cluster will not be dropped if you thin out the rest.
jellyman
16 years ago
Paul and/or Irene:

I am totally on board with tcstoehr on this one. Get up there and thin those apples immediately, to one fruit per cluster. When you do, you may notice there is already some apparently minor insect damage in the form of small scars, holes, or just dark colored lines. These imperfections that may seem minor now will later become major. So start by thinning all those apples off that have even the slightest imperfections. After that, go for the fattest, fastest-developing fruit. Once the chosen fruit is alone in the cluster, bag it. Waiting for fruit drop is a recipe for disaster if you have any kind of insect activity around.

By leaving more than one fast-developing fruit in the cluster you are ensuring that neither or none of them will grow up to its full potential. Once all but one has been removed, the one you leave will begin to grow even faster. Unhappiness is thinning off all but one fat apple, then finding out the one you have selected has also been selected by the plum curculio or codling moth on the side you could not see.

I am thinning right now, and my apples are much smaller than one inch. However, I am able to idenfity those with the best potential, and usually find the insect damage in time to remove it. Clusters of apples are more attractive to insects than singleton fruits. Insects are efficiency experts.

I usually work with a small scissors when I can clearly see what I am doing, but if I have to reach into the tree I also try to roll or break off the apples gently with my fingers. You have to be careful because fruiting clusters are still quite tender at this time of year, and can be easily broken off.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
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Strange it may seem, Zinia, but it is that little bag (or similar arrangement) that protects the fruit from insects in the event you don't want to spray with insecticides every week. And who does? Apples grow in clusters, just as they blossom. Normally, there are about 6 blooms to a cluster, but sometimes 7 or even 8. Thinning normally consists of removing all but the very best, unmarked, largest apple from the cluster. You may choose to thin to 2 fruits per cluster, or even 3, but you need to thin, and the biggest best apples grow alone in the cluster, after all the others have been removed. You may have more fruit this year than the year past. If you summer prune your trees you will see even more, because you will have more fruiting spurs. I don't know exactly what puzzles you about bagging apples, but here is a quick outline of the procedure: 1. Buy a box of ziplock sandwich bags. Not the freezer bags, which are heavier. You want the lightweight stuff. 2. Take a scissors, and cut off the strip of plastic above the actual zipper closure. Now the zipper is right at the top of the bag. Make sure you open the zipper before you cut off the plastic above it, or you will have a hell of a time getting it open. 3. With the same pair of scissors, cut off the corners of the bags at the bottom to allow drainage. Now your bags are ready to install. 4. Place the bag over the little apple, with the stem in the center of the zipper, then close from both sides by gentle squeezing until you have it snug up to the stem. Make sure it clicks shut all the way across except where the stem passes through. 5. Stand back and admire your work. It is easier to do this job after thinning, when there is only one apple per cluster, but it is possible with two. More than that becomes a little complicated. 6. If you notice insect damage before you bag, you may have to use an insecticide in the interim, but if you find one nice undamaged apple you are home free, so you can remove and discard curculio damaged fruit. Try it. Good Luck. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
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Glenn: You seem particularly concerned about cedar apple rust on your apples, which I can well understand since this disease has also been a serious problem for me. First, the Ferbam. I was able to find it at a chemical company that services the commercial grower trade, and I am quite sure that if you searched the net you could also find it by internet or mailorder. I do not personally believe that ferbam is highly toxic to humans, but whether it is or not, I place myself in no danger and I do not dress up like an astronaut when I apply it. I do have a long, stand-back wand for my backpack sprayer, and spray only when wind conditions are calm. If there is even a slight breeze, I keep myself upwind. I apply ferbam wearing a t-shirt and shorts (and sunglasses), and wait until the spray has fallen on the leaves before moving around to a different angle so that none of the spray material falls on me. It also helps to keep your trees pruned down to a reasonable height so that you seldom find yourself spraying upward. That's one of the reasons I have converted all my central leader trees to a lower vase shape. A series of consistently windy/rainy days can effectively shut my spraying operations down, but that's just the way it is. I don't spray on days like that. Commercial orchardists use highly powered motorized sprayers that fill the entire orchard with spray mist. They have to suit up before doing this, but my spraying techniques are much more careful and targeted, and I don't believe I have to. CAR strikes very early, and if you are going to have it, it will be there before you thin and bag the apples. It is visible on the calyx end of the apple, and the little developing apples are often distorted because of it. If you see a perfect apple, without any sign of the yellow/orange stain, you can bag it with confidence because the CAR spores are effectively cut off from the apple by the bag. I do think that dormant copper sprays are effective at controlling overwintering spores of CAR, scab, and other fungal diseases, but new CAR infections can blow in with the rain from elsewhere in any given spring. Ferbam may not be the only fungicide effective against CAR, but it is the one I found and was able to buy. To be effective, the first Ferbam spray should be applied as soon as apples begin blooming. The fungicide component of Bonide Fruit Tree Spray, which is Captan, is not effective against CAR even if you applied it in pure form and at full strength. My only complaint about Ferbam is its granular composition, which never fully dissolves. As a result, I have to clean out the in-line filter in my sprayer wand with a toothbrush each time I refill it when using this chemical. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
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@MrsG47 - Perhaps he was just doing that other cut as an example? I only cut one area on mine... though I do a V cut instead of just a single cut. @Milehighgirl- You don't have to remove the part above the pleat, but it's just one less thing to get in the way. @ltilton- My asian pears don't really need bagging for insect and disease reasons. But, the bags to help keep the deer off, so often I'll still bag 'em. I find it rare for the bags to come off. More often for me, it's because the tree decided to drop that fruit for whatever reason, and the whole thing comes off. But, for me, I think I only have a couple bags (out of 300 or so) slip off. And, those, I wonder if I really did seal the pleat 100%. -Glenn
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The other downside to not thinning enough is that the trees may decide to thin for you in June. It's not good to see a bunch of painstakingly hung bags on the ground. On some of my smaller trees, I actually thinned the flowers out, hoping to save energy for the trees. It also makes for less work later (and there were fewer leaves to get in the way). I started this year's bagging last week (30-40) and used up a complete box (125 count) of bags today. There is more to go, but I am most of the way done. Last week I saw almost no hits, but now, I'm seeing quite a few PC bites, which I am thinning off. I've been careful to collect them all for the trash, rather than letting them sit on the ground where they could hatch. Interestingly the hits seem to be non-uniformly distributed. Egremont and Roxbury Russets both had almost complete coverage...to the point where I was considering bagging a few ER with bites (hoping the apple would grow fast enough to crush the eggs), just to have something. While the Kidds Orange Red (right in between the 2 above trees in the row) was almost free of bites. Next year, I think I'll need to bag those 2 first.
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paulandirene
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks tcstoehr and Don, I really appreciate your quick responses.

I'm gonna get some baggies immediately and get to work! :-)

Paul
tcstoehr
16 years ago
By the way, I just happen to have "bagged" my apples yesterday, but I am using the nylon foot socks which you can read about here:
http://www.homeorchardsociety.org/footies/

I have used the standard apple bags in the past but was discouraged by the time and effort required to put them on and the obtrusive mess they make in the tree. The nylon "footies" are much easier to put on and are hardly noticeable in the tree. They're small enough that they don't block any light from reaching the surrounding leaves. I "installed" about 200 yesterday and it took some time but was a breeze all things considered. I was thinning at the same time and installing the footies blended right in with that task.
They are possibly reusable but I won't know til next year. I don't see why I can't reuse them. Even if they're stretched out and have lost their elasticity, I can still attach them with twist ties, I think.
murkwell
16 years ago
tctoehr, how large were your apples yesterday?
tcstoehr
16 years ago
My apples now are all smaller that a peanut kernel, except Williams Pride which is an early season apple. They're about the size of a small marble.
That's the other advantage of the nylon footies, they are easy to put on even the smallest apples. Using bags on apples this small would give me fits.
amelie_danjou
16 years ago
Last year almost all my apples dropped their fruit very young, and what was left I let the squirrels get, it was so misshapen. Is there anything I should have done? I'm new to this.
Also I may have quince-cedar rust -- it was on my quince tree last year, but I just identified it this spring. Will this affect my apples too? Is that why they are not blooming this year?
I need to know more about pruning too.
Amelie

Bagging Apples: wait for fruit drop or bag now?

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tcstoehr

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Bagging Apples: wait for fruit drop or bag now?

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tcstoehr

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