From: "William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Late grapes
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:22:25 -0600
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)
--
We must... stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We
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
discern the truth. - "The Assault on Reason" by Al Gore