Ziplock Apples - Gala

This is why I do it.

The Galas are great this yr. aren't they? I have bushels on 1 tree.
RED

My small Gala is loaded this year too.....all the apple trees are!!

L Tilton, How soon after fruit set did you bag those apples? I am thinking about the Plum Circulio.

In early June, just after the first drop. You can see the size they were in the photo here.

I did spray once, at petal fall, before I started bagging. When I bagged them I thinned at the same time and clipped off any that showed curculio damage.

I got all the Galas bagged before the coddling moths showed up, but by the time I got to the Yellow Delicious, a week or so later, they had already done a lot of damage. One tree is full of perfect fruit, the other ... isn't. I'll try to get it all done earlier next year.

L, I tried this year to do the same thing, but got to mine too late. I still bagged about 100 that looked like they were not infected, but many were. I'm still waiting to see the final results. I think this is worthwhile and will start earlier next year.

Ltilton--Does bagging also prevent rot, rust & mildew. My galas are huge, worm and pest free, but do have some cedar rust which is only on the skin and doesn't affect the apple at all, just its appearance.
RED

No, I don't think so.

I have cedar rust here, but it just gets onto the leaves, I don't see much of it on the fruit whether or not it's bagged.

And my Gala tree [knock wood] wasn't affected by it.

I just polished off one of my Grand Galas and it was so good and juicy!

They are so good when they're fresh and crisp.

Not the best keepers, though, Galas.

I think they are a cross between Golden Delicious and Cox Pippen.

LTilton
How many trees do you have and what varieties? I live about 6 hrs south of you just south of Carbondale. I was just talking to a small orchardist friend of mine who does farmer's markets about the brown rot this year and he said there is a new "expensive" fungicide he got mid to laate summer and it stopped his brown rot. He couldn't remember the name but there is a FS store up in orchard country about 10 mi north where he got it. I am going to go up and ask about it and the price.
RED

Red, I'd love to hear about it, and I know I'm not the only one.

I've got over a dozen trees, though half of them are still too young for bearing.

Apples, pears, nectarines cherries and Stanley plums are bearing, but the only fruit that really got the brown rot were the nectarines. Japanese plums and apricots and hybrids will of course be susceptible to brown rot when they begin.

I used Captan and Ziram alternately until the fruit was about 1/3 grown. My Shiro plum, sweet and sour cherries, 2 of 3 peach trees, a pluot, and a Mirabelle plum did not have any problems. My Santa Rosa, Stanley, Gage and Starks Delicious plum were badly infected. My nectarines lost the entire crop and 1 peach lost 90% to brown rot. I started spraying again when the rot surfaced BUT I think you must need to start spraying 6 weeks before harvest and spray up until harvest. I think next yr I am going to spray all summer. I HATE losing so much fruit. I don't like to spray so much but I also want a crop.
RED

Hi! New to this forum, & am getting ready to purchase 2 apple trees to plant this winter. Am extremely interested in the "bagging" of the apples, but am concerned that the fruit would just burn up in my climate - zone 8b. Our summers are horrendously hot & humid - often 98 degrees & 75% humidity. Has anyone done the bagging in a hot climate? Thnaks, Samantha

Hi,
I could have copied graceful_garden's post above- exact same message except I live just N. of Raleigh, NC. We had over 100 deg. at least 5 different days last Summer.

Anyhow, if anyone bags apples in the [hot] South, please let us know.
Thanks,
Paul

I am afraid to try plastic bags in my climate...too many days way over 100 degrees to count. I made small bags out of sheer curtains I got at Goodwill and just slipped them over my peaches and apples.

Footies, those nylon expandables, likely work ok on peaches and sometimes on apples.

One problem of bagging or"footieing" is that the plum circulio strikes early before they are large enough to bag.....in some areas .

This message was edited Oct 24, 2008 2:23 PM

This year, the coddling moth struck hard before I was finished.

I do wonder how the nylon thing would hold on when the peach is so small.

I did one peach and I used a twist wire.

Footies are not hard to put on, you twist two sides of the top in your fingers to make two "ropes" and tie those together in a single knot. The material sticks to itself so you don't need to do a square knot even. The downside is the footies do not provide complete moth protection. When the fruit is pushing against the footies the moths can lay the egg through it. It does have some positive reduction and for peaches and plums there is no other bagging opportunity so it is worth experimenting with. For apples if you are bagging you should just use the ziplocks.

Re: warm humid climates for ziplocks, I have not heard of any problems there in fact. I would say give it a try on a couple apples at least.

I have been using a Surround/Spinosad spray combination. I was thinking that would overall be less time than the bagging given the number of apples I have, but I am really not so sure about that.

Scott

I've read that you can buy those footie things in bulk, but I don't know where.

For peach/nectarine, I don't have any moth pests here, just the curculios. And this year, the Japanese beetles, that refused to die on time.