North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Stefan Brandle <sbrandle@css.tayloru.edu>]

Here's my basic report so far.

Bagging does keep the bugs off. A number of both paper and plastic bags 
got blown off in various storms. Perhaps the most useful thing that I 
can contribute is a web page with pictures of bagged and unbagged 
apples. The pictures go something like this:

(1) Bagged and unbagged gold rush apples. Tree was totally unsprayed. 
The difference between the bagged and unbagged apples is quite significant.

(2) Bagged and unbagged scarlet o'hara apples. Tree did get 2 or three 
sprays (can't remember now): one about three weeks after petal drop 
(mid-May), possibly one very early June, and one near the end of June. 
The difference between bagged and unbagged apples isn't that 
significant. But I do have balls coated with the stickum stuff (similar 
to tanglefoot, but available in larger containers for less money) that 
have done a lot of protecting. I got the bags on about three weeks after 
petal drop, and many apples had already been zapped by the bad guys, so 
you will notice some damage on the bagged apple.

(3) A couple pictures of the fake apples. These are styrofoam balls, 
painted red, covered by a sandwich bag, and stuck up with the gunk. The 
sandwich bag was someone else's bright idea; at the end of the season, 
you don't really have to unstick the ball, just remove the bag and drop 
the bag in the garbage. I've taken to describing these red balls as tar 
babies for various evil fruit flies and such. People get the idea quickly.

(4*) I suppose that I could sacrifice a paper-bagged apple and remove 
the bag so that you can see what it looks like. I haven't done it yet. 
Will let you know when I take the pictures. If the apples are still 
green (from the white paper bag), I intend to try Michael Phillips 
suggestion about writing a child's name of transparent tape and sticking 
it on the apple until harvest, thus getting a harvested apple with the 
kids name in green on a red background.

Pictures are at http://www.css.tayloru.edu/~sbrandle/apples/

-- sb
East central Indiana, officially zone 5b, but maybe not if this winter is as 
wierd as the spring and summer have been. We'll see.