I also participated in this year's apple bagging experiment. Though my results were mixed, I will definitely do it again.
I bagged apples on a Honeycrisp. The apples I bagged for the university trial were mostly on the southwest side of the tree,
which is planted on the south side of my house and receives a lot of heat in the afternoon. I, too, found that bagged apples
that were in full sun were far more likely to be stunted, scarred or have other problems.
Unfortunately this motley-looking group was what the university people ended up with. I would not have wanted to eat most of
them.
However, I bagged a lot of apples in other parts of the tree that matured beautifully. Of about 40 or so apples I bagged for
myself, I had about 15 that rivalled the big beautiful Honeycrisp you see in grocery stores, and most of the rest were very
acceptable to me.
The one problem I found on many bagged apples was the presence of earwigs. They were everywhere in the tree in September,
sometimes carving out little nips at the top of the fruit next to the stems. The damage didn't affect the edibility of the
fruit.
I don't want to spray my one tree, and this seems a very easy alternative to chemicals. After my experience, I would recommend
stapling the bag on both sides of the stem and cutting BOTH corners off the bottom of the plastic bags. Some of the bags with
just one corner cut off collected a lot of water during our monsoon last June and where the bags were in full sun it seemed to
contribute to scalding marks.
MJ
Hennepin County MG
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Mary Jane Smetanka phone: 612-673-7380
Higher education reporter FAX: 612-673-7726
Star Tribune e-mail: smetan@startribune.com
425 Portland Av. South
Minneapolis, MN 55488
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>>> "Bob Bystrom" <bob.bystrom@dnr.state.mn.us> 02/01 1:53 PM >>>
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.
