Fruit bagging can cut need for pesticides

By William White

Published: May 9, 2008

Regional Extension Agent Stan Roark talked to agents from across the state about the practice of bagging fruit and reducing the amount of chemical spraying Friday at the home orchard of Dr. Charles and Peggy Mitchell west of Auburn.

“Our goal here is maybe not to eliminate spraying,” he said. “But if we could drop it even by two-thirds, that is a big reduction in the amount work and pesticides applied to fruit.”

Roark said a practice of bagging fruit has been done for hundreds of years in the Orient which protects the fruit from insects, diseases and birds.

Using bags to enclose fruit such as apples, peaches, pears and plums means a reduction of pesticide exposure for the homeowner or small producer who want high quality fruit protected from insects, birds and fungal disease. The regional extension agent said that bagging will also help with the thinning.

“Our backyard producers have a hard time going out and thinning,” he said. “If they have to put a bag on every one, they are going to be much more likely to thin. There are a lot of backyard trees that become broken down because they allow too much fruit on them, or they have smaller fruit to harvest.

The conditions and timing of bagging are important:

-- It needs to be a nice, clear, fair day.

-- the fruit needs to be dry.

--Bag fruit after the normal fruit drop and thinning.

Roark said once you get the knack of bagging, the process is pretty quick.

The process is described in “Growing Worm-Free, Spray-Free Apples” from http://www.homeorchardsociety.org as, “The apple should be roughly centered in the bag opening and both ends of the bag top should be pressed in toward the stem and then secured with a tie.”

The Japanese Apple Growing Bags, white and brown lunch bags and regular notebook paper can be used in the bagging process.

In demonstrating the technique, he used both brown and white lunch bags cut down to 6 inches in length with a slit cut in the middle of one side. Use either bag on apples, and the white bag on peaches.

A single fruit is cleared of surrounding leaves and the stem is placed in the slit. The sides are folded toward the stem and a wire tie is used to secure the bag around the stem. Nothing else is required until time for harvesting the fruit when the bag is removed.

He used the white notebook paper by folding it in halves over the stem and fruit. Making a fold on each side and stapling in place is next and followed by folding the open end’s corners to opposite sides and stapling. A small opening is left to allow any moisture out.

For more information and a copy of ANR-50 Home Fruit Spray Guide, visit http://www.aces.edu, or call the local Extension office at 749-3353.