Join usin Part 5, as organic orchard consultant, Andrew Goodheart Brown and pomology expert and Professor Emeritus of Cornell University, Bob Andersen teach us how to rejuvenate an old orchard. Increase yield, health and vitality of even very old fruiting trees to bring them back into production and minimize disease buildup through integrated insect management.
VIDEO: Organic Orchard Rejuvenation Part 5 Insect Management
Join usin Part 5, as organic orchard consultant, Andrew Goodheart Brown and pomology expert and Professor Emeritus of Cornell University, Bob Andersen teach us how to rejuvenate an old orchard. Increase yield, health and vitality of even very old fruiting trees to bring them back into production and minimize disease buildup through integrated insect management.
If you don't mind me saying, i'm missing something crucial there that is common practice around here in Europe in most home orchards/vegetable gardens. Bird boxes, bird boxes and more bird boxes. All shapes, sorts and hole and slit sizes. Wood, terracotta bottles, wren pouches, swift bowls, birdhouse gourds, you name it. If it has a hole in it and is dry inside, you hang it up. As many as you can fit in there. The inhabitants deal with pretty much all common insect pests that come out in early spring and prevent them from becoming a plague population. The blue tits and great tits but also wrens, flycatchers and robins barely leave the trees, shrubs and vegetable patches. They fly in, grab a mouth full of caterpillars, fly back to the box to fill 3-9 hungry mouths and repeat that all day, every day, for months. Don't know how many nests of young they have per year, but that is substantial as well. I think each parent pair deals with about a whopping 500 pest insects per day or whatever it was. Whatever pest is there, the right birds will move in to deal with the problem. The robin never leaves my potato patch. As soon as a beetle shows up on top of the leaf, it is history. I could watch him all day as he hammered down this infestation. Currently, i can't find a single beetle myself. They love nesting where the food is plentiful and close to home.