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Grape Netting
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Fruit Tree Netting
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Sewing Cherry Tree Bags
Kootenay Covers
This revolutionary method creates a physical barrier to the cherry worm, preventing infection without sprays or poisons of any kind.
Kootenay Covers- the poisonless way to grow
Marilyn Roberts, inventor of Kootenay Covers.
I have always loved fresh fruit, but don’t like the idea of applying poisons in my back yard repeatedly throughout the summer. In the early part of this century, after I had moved to Mirror Lake, I discovered worms in my cherries but I didn’t want to spray, so I started experimenting with ways to keep the worms out. First, I tried picking all the cherries before the worms could mature, but this didn’t help, I had worms again the next year. Then I tried tarping the ground so the flies couldn’t get out. This didn’t help either. I realized I was being re-infected by neighboring trees.
Finally in about 2003, in desperation I bought some old mesh curtains at the thrift shop and made small bags to go over some of the cherries. That year those cherries were worm-free! The next year, I made larger bags to cover whole branches to see if it would hurt the tree. The bagged leaves were even healthier than the unbagged, and I had no worms in the protected cherries.
The next year I ordered about $600 worth of commercial insect netting, made a pattern to fit my 16’ diameter tree, and sewed the bag on my treadle sewing machine. I was astounded that when we put it on it fit like a glove. That was the first year I had a whole tree full of wormless cherries. However, the netting started to fall apart when we took it off since it wasn’t UV resistant.
Other people asked me to make them a bag but the cost of commercial material had almost doubled, and I needed a better quality material anyway. I contacted manufacturers all over the world, looking for just the ‘right stuff’ but no one had durable material; everyone wants to cut corners and produce it as cheaply as possible. Also, I had raised the flies from worms and taken photos of them under a microscope to be sure of the size, and nothing available had holes that were just small enough to keep out the flies but still let in light, air and water.
At last one manufacturer said they extruded their own fiber and could make anything I wanted. They re-tooled three times to get it just right! The quality was amazing and the price was much lower than anything I had encountered, anywhere else. When I got ready to order bulk material, they told me they could make whatever I wanted, and the cost would be a lot cheaper than if I did it myself. They were right! Now, since I don’t mark them up much, my retail price for a completed cherry cover is less than a third of what the original material cost over 10 years ago. It is 100% effective against cherry worms, and as an added bonus, it keeps out all the wasps and birds, and hail or heavy rain just hits and bounces, protecting the ripening fruit inside. One farmer in the Okanagan told me he uses my cherry covers to protect his walnuts from the husk fly, and went from 100% loss one year to 0% loss the next. An organic cherry orchard on Vancouver Island covered 9 rows of cherries with my netting and has had perfect harvests, even though another farmer nearby who sprayed lost his crop to the spotted wing drosophilia.
I have been using one cover for 8 years now, and often put it on an apple tree when it comes off the cherry to keep out people and wild turkeys, so it’s really had more than 8 years use, and it is still very strong and stretchy. I suspect these covers will last at least 10 years, perhaps 15 or 20 but I won’t know for sure till that amount of time has elapsed. I have had to make a couple of repairs on it where we pulled it too hard over a very sharp branch and where a bear tried to get in. He made a few claw holes 5 – 40 cm long but after a few tries he gave up. I suspect a really hungry bear might have just kept working till he got through but since the material is extremely tough that would take a long time.
Recently I have added netting with larger holes in strips of 12’ and 16’ widths, 75 metres (244’) long to cover grapevines and other row crops. It has had rave reviews from people who have used it, since it is cost effective, durable, easy to put on, keeps out the wasps, birds and hail, and can be used year after year. It is easily draped over the grape vines and stapled near the bottom to secure it. I also have bales of the finer meshed cherry netting 12’ x 100’ available this year. These products are very good for protecting row crops, and I’ve been told the finer mesh even protects against the spotted wing drosophila.
For more information, you can contact Marilyn at email: mroberts@kootenaycovers.com or phone her at (250) 353-2264 or check out www.kootenaycovers.com.
