North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>]

> Where do you buy disposable netting for grapes?  I'd like to get some, too, 
> as most of my grape crop gets eaten by the critters.
>   


Well, I don't know. But I thought I'd do an Internet search for it next 
year, though I don't know if it would be any cheaper.

I bought a case of Nixalite YardTek netting 
(http://www.nixalite.com/YardTekGardenNet.aspx) early this year, since I 
figured I'd need it eventually (most of my fruit trees are too young 
right now). And it worked great to keep the birds away from my three 
grapevines.

However, the birds started pecking at my grapes long before they started 
to ripen, while they were still green and hard, in fact. And no amount 
of scare items (fake owls, strips of foil, etc.) did anything at all. 
The netting worked, but I had to put it up early, and the vines grew 
through it and wrapped tendrils around it, so there was just no way to 
remove it afterwards. Well, maybe I could have left it on until spring, 
then tried to prune the vines and untangle the net later, but that 
didn't sound too appealing.

With shipping, the netting cost me about $8 per vine (it looks cheaper 
than that now - apparently it's on sale). I'd certainly prefer to use it 
more than once, but I don't know if disposable netting is available and 
cheaper. And I don't think I'd get any grapes at all without it. I 
certainly didn't in 2006 (my first year with grapes).

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
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must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudostudies known to be 
false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to 
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