North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

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

Dearest Mr. Fackler:

Can you lend your seasoned opinion to an ignorant savage on the following:

I am trying to determine which orchard pests actually fly in and land on 
fruit verses crawl up or fly into a tree and then walk the branches and stems 
down the fruit.  In truth I have never observed any "pests" doing their 
damage, I have only witnessed the after effects of their forays into my trees.

I am curious if simply a cone shaped barrier that is fairly snug against the 
stem of a piece of fruit would serve as an adequate barrier against a pest 
like curculio?  I noticed about 85% of the damage appears near the stem which 
makes me think the darn things simply walk down the branch to the stem and 
lay their eggs.  

Newspaper wrapping and paper bagging has worked exceptionally well for me in 
the past on apples and plastic bagging less so.  In reflection I wonder if 
this has to do more with how I apply the bags...i.e the ziplock method simply 
had more of a gap for the bugs to pass through or if the sunlight simply made 
them give off an odor that strongly attracted the pests.

But as others have observed bagging seems futile on plums as they split, rot 
etc.  So I thought about a cone shaped barrier that basically encases the 
plum like a lampshade does a light bulb, only the funnel portion would hug 
the stem.  My test pilot for this, consist of only I plum, as frost claimed 
all but a handful of plums and I tried a few different methods of stopping 
plum curculio so this hardly qualifies, but to date my one example has no 
curculio damage.  Unfortunately it is located at the end of  a branch and I 
wondered is the scent was simply too diluted with all the other things 
growing around it for the pests to hone in on.   But then I thought of the 
ever wonderful Edwardo and his databank of field experience and thought I 
would inquire if a simple barrier method of a cone shaped might have some 
merit.

So essentially the question is how many pests fly in and land on fruit verses 
walk the branches and stems, and then would the insects be too lazy to walk 
the length of the cone and then the reverse side to get to the fruit.

Curious rabbits want to know.

Your every fluffy friend...


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