Bird net

There are vineyards using fruit-zone-only bird net instead of the cover-all type. Your experience and thoughts?

That depends on the training system you use. If using VSP, the side netting works pretty good but you really need to do a good job closing it up with a lot of clips. It will not work for top wire or other systems where you have a larger area to close.

grapeman said:

That depends on the training system you use. If using VSP, the side netting works pretty good but you really need to do a good job closing it up with a lot of clips. It will not work for top wire or other systems where you have a larger area to close.

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Good point, Rich. I have a row of mixed varieties so looks like it would make sense to do a cover-all.

I'm not familiar with "fruit zone only" netting - and use the bird net that is 17' wide - and even when closed underneath (as Rich says) find the birds have nothing better to do but try to figure out where all your smallest gaps are - and exploit them!

OilnH2O said:

I'm not familiar with "fruit zone only" netting - and use the bird net that is 17' wide - and even when closed underneath (as Rich says) find the birds have nothing better to do but try to figure out where all your smallest gaps are - and exploit them!

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Do they get trapped inside sometimes?

OilnH2O said:

I'm not familiar with "fruit zone only" netting - and use the bird net that is 17' wide - and even when closed underneath (as Rich says) find the birds have nothing better to do but try to figure out where all your smallest gaps are - and exploit them!

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As an example look at this link to Plantra products
http://www.plantra.com/BirdNetting/AviGardEasyFitSquareMeshBirdNetSideNet.aspx

berrycrush said:

Do they get trapped inside sometimes?

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Daisy BB gun to cleanse the gene pool of smart ones !!

When using cover-all type bird net, do you remove them before harvest? and re-install them next season?

berrycrush said:

When using cover-all type bird net, do you remove them before harvest? and re-install them next season?

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Yes, I cover them towards the end of the growing season, preferably before I see birds coming in for a meal. We remove the netting at harvest. It gets rolled up and put away under cover for the next year.

This year the berries ripened early and I got the netting on after I saw a flock of wax wings dive bomb the ripest rows. I lost a little bit of fruit but it was made up for when I saw a surprised Flicker bounce off the netting when it came in for another meal. It gave me a laugh and nobody was hurt.

I drape the netting over the rows of my half acre vineyard (two wire trellis) and walk the vineyard a couple of times a day to check for gaps and to free the few birds that find a way under the netting. They don't seem to do much damage. But sometimes a cat gets to them before I do.

Birds always manage to get some fruit in spite of the netting, I'm guessing they get 5% or less of the harvest. Without the netting I'd have nothing at all.

This from the Willamette Valley in Oregon.

Sage said:

Daisy BB gun to cleanse the gene pool of smart ones !!

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I know a vineyard manager that uses a shotgun. The noise of the gun makes as big an impression on the birds as the death of their buddies. He says it works pretty well but would prefer netting if it was an option for him.

I use two systems which are both painful but as others have said, I would have no harvest without them. The system I use in the test plot is bird netting from Lowes, draped over the trellis and tied with tie wraps at the bottom. A two person job, but almost 100% effective. They are 14X14 foot sections. In the main vineyard I use the system described by Grapeman here which is a 500 foot net rolled off the back of a cart onto the vines in a continuous loop. Both are a two man job and like hanging wallpaper if you are married.

oregondabbler said:

Yes, I cover them towards the end of the growing season, preferably before I see birds coming in for a meal. We remove the netting at harvest. It gets rolled up and put away under cover for the next year.

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How do you keep the net from tangling up with the vines/tendrils?

You get some shoots that grow through the net, but usually they come out OK when you remove it.

I see that there are 2"x2" mesh and 0.75"x075" mesh, which kind should I get?

IF you have a larger vineyard (5+acres) BirdGard Pro is the way to go. Saves a ton of labor!

http://ovs.com/product/birdgard-pro-bird-control

I think the effectiveness of the BirdGuard depends on the pressure from the local bird population. I have the full setup and found it to work- somewhat..... The birds become acclimated to the system even though it changes up the distress calls often. Even with the second set up calls, its effectiveness goes down over time as bird pressure builds up.

I found this really cheap side netting on Amazon and decided to give a try:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BG7QLK4?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

Berrycrush, I've used that product you found on Amazon a few years back. It did not work very well - tangled easily every time the wind moved it around. Maybe you'll have better luck with it.

I use side net that i bought from http://www.spectrellising.com. Ive been using the same net for 6 years and it still is good along with the clips.