North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Erdman, James" <erdmanj@uwstout.edu>]

I finally tried this, this year, on my cherries.  I had been considering 
using beads, 
but couldn't decide exactly what kind of beads to use, not sure of size, 
shape, or 
color, but then I found a box of  a few hundred each of different colored 
beads
at a garage sale, cheap, and the assortment included some red ones, so I 
bought 
them.  I had some copper wire that fit the hole in the beads and I flattened 
the 
end of the piece of wire so the bead was stuck on the wire, then put them on 
the 
tree with a couple of turns around the limb.  I installed about 20 per tree 
when the 
cherries were about full size but hadn't turned color.  In the past I used 
netting 
which snagged branches (inspite of a frame of PVC pipe designed to hold the 
netting away from the  branches) and also deteriorated over the years.  This 
year
I had almost no bird damage, but did see robins and other pest birds in the 
area.
I should mention that I have put a few wren houses in the orchard too, with 
the idea that the territorial wrens might keep other birds away.  So I cannot 
prove it was beads or wrens or a combination or just luck, but I am certainly 
going to do the bead thing again next year.

A question for Jim Fruth:  Do you take the beads off after cherry season, or
leave them on year around?  I was planning to remove them this fall, put them 
back on next season.

I'll post some pictures on Facebook if I get time.

Jim Erdman, Menomonie, WI, an hour east of St Paul/Minneapolis

________________________________________


I keep forgetting to try this.  Do you use red beads that are the same
size  as cherries or are they a lot smaller?

~mIEKAL



On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 9:27 AM, Jim Fruth <jimfruth@charter.net> wrote:
>    I keep (LOTS of) red berry beads on my Evans Cherry trees the whole year
> around.  The Robins peck on them, deciding they are inedible and don't come
> back when the trees are full of cherries.  If you do this for yourself, be
> sure and attach the beads with dead-soft aluminum wire that expands as the
> branches grow.