North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[fuwa fuwa usagi <fuwafuwausagi@muchomail.com>]

It was written:

Where are you?  

I've not followed the bagging discussions closely.  Are growers seeing 

preferences for paper vs plastic, or closed plastic vs plastic w/ corner cut, in different

climates/ zones? 

My reply: 

I am not a “grower” so I am just a fluffy bunny with a few trees scattered about his back yard so take it in context.   I am in zone 4b/5a, in the Midwest and we had one nasty, droughty summer.  I only watered my Plums once and my raspberries 2x.  Apples and pears received nothing.  

Other interesting information, my pears were attacked by insects for the first time this year.  My plums unusually seemed to suffer less than usual and I managed to get by with just 3 sprays, I dormant oil and 2 all purpose sprays ( I waited to the first pc damage to appear and then blasted, then 3 weeks later and hand thinned out the damaged stuff). 

However on my bagged apples I did a dormant oil and 1 all purpose spray and then bagged the unblemished fruit.  I was surprised to see significant pc and other damage.   My observation was that I could personally smell the bagged apples and I speculate that so could the insects and that the plastic bags plus the intense sun simply gave them an odor to smell, conveniently concentrating itself around the branch where the bag had a small gap.  I figure about 33% of my bag fruit is damaged when contrasted to paper where I suffered no damage of consequence.  My guess is that the paper allows the odor to dissipate and the plastic amplifies the odor.

Regards, 

El Conejo Suave

--- fuwa fuwa usagi wrote:

---------------------------------

Very quickly...I ahve had extremely disappointing results with using 

ziplock bags

and cutting the corners.



1) the aforementioned condesation

2) fairly heavy insect infestation problems



In the past I have used paper bags, and newspaper and found them farmore

satisfactory.  I was intrigued by the idea of plasticallowing coloration

 to take

place.  Next year I hope to perform amore controlled experiment, but I 

suspect, that

plastic will proveinferior to paper.


the fluffy bunny

 

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