I participated in the apple bagging experiment last summer and must say
I am not as enthusiastic about the results as the author of the article
in the Yard and Garden Line News. Apparently others did not encounter
the problems I did.
I bagged apples on Fireside and Honey Gold. A significant portion of
the bagged apples, especially Honey Gold, developed lesions that grew
into a brown corky mass affecting about � of the mature apple. This
damage appeared to be related to the bagged apple's exposure to the sun
(and perhaps moisture trapped by the bag). Bagged apples that received
less sun fared better. None of the unbagged apples suffered this kind of
damage.
A few of the bagged apples did not grow to full size. This may be
related to insufficient thinning of the fruit. On the other hand,
apples on a given tree grow to various sizes even under optimum
conditions. Some of the apples that are fat in July apples will turn
out to be to be runts in October. So if you want to harvest 50 perfect
apples, I'd suggest bagging many more than that.
Raccoons or possums also tore off some of the bagged fruit in mid
summer. The animals were probably motivated by curiosity because the
fruit was unripe and left uneaten. The bagged fruit is fairly
conspicuous, so I assume this is what attracted the animals.
None of the bagged apples were damaged by apple maggots. However, I
did not spray the trees after the apples were bagged last summer and
most of the unbagged apples were also damage free. Perhaps this is
because very dry weather inhibited the emergence of adult flies?
Whatever the reason, I don't feel that the results justified the apple
bagging effort in my case in this particular season.
