Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Late grapes

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] Late grapes
  • Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:12:25 -0600


does anyone have experience with trap crops as a way of detering birds from
your desired fruit?


Not me. I've planted some mulberries, but I want them for me, too. :-) And they're all too young yet, anyway.

But this year, the April freeze eliminated so much wild fruit around here that the birds were worse than usual. I'd never had much trouble leaving my black raspberry patch un-netted, but this year, the robins ate every single berry, before they even had a chance to get ripe. And I heard from someone in Omaha that had the same experience with his blueberries - never a problem before, but his entire crop wiped out this year. There just wasn't anything else to eat, I guess.


what kind of birds are doing the most damage?


Although it was the robins on my black raspberries this year (and they always take SOME fruit), it's the cardinals that are the big problem with my grapes. That seems really odd, since cardinals are mainly seed eaters (I thought), but they ate all of my grapes last year. I didn't try CD's, but I strung up long strips of aluminum foil to blow in the breeze, and that didn't stop them for five minutes.

This year, I netted the grapes. That worked fine, but it sure made the cardinals angry! It was pretty funny, seeing them beat against the netting in apparent fury. Note that they couldn't have been too hungry, since I had feeders filled with safflower seed for them. Just got hungry for fruit, I guess.

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
Science is not about control. It is about cultivating a perpetual condition of wonder in the face of something that forever grows one step richer and subtler than our latest theory about it. It is about reverence, not mastery. - Richard Powers




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page