Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Cherry Tree Lunacy

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Cherry Tree Lunacy
  • Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2007 19:50:52 -0500


This year I'm determined to get just a few ripe cherries off of our 15'
Schmidt's Biggereau cherry tree. The raccoons, squirrels, and birds love
this tree, and all I get is to clean up cherry pits on the ground.

I've hung a dozen pie tins in the tree, and put a aluminum flashing guard
over the trunk to try to keep the raccoons out of it.


I have no problem with raccoons, luckily, but I've never had any luck keeping birds off my fruit except with netting (and even then, they'll beat at it or sit on it to get to any berry they can stretch to reach). I've tried fake owls and snakes, moved around every day, flashing strips of aluminum, and everything else I can think of. Then I watch the birds fly up, sit and look at my exhibits for a few minutes, and quickly decide to ignore them.

Squirrels are another problem. They're very, very good at sneaking through bird netting. I thought maybe they'd chew through it, but they just find the edges and squeeze past. None of the animal repellents I've used seems to affect them in the slightest. Maybe if the tree is big enough, and isolated enough, tanglefoot on the trunk might help. But I suspect they'd just jump over it.

Good luck!

Bill

--
Although the history of science contains numerous examples of an investigator's expectations clouding his or her vision and judgment, the most serious of these abuses are overcome by the discipline's insistence on replicability and the public presentation of results. - "How We Know What Isn't So" by Thomas Gilovich




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page