I've been using item # 64106 from Store Supply Warehouse below. But haven't ordered in a while and the item pictured now looks shorter than mine. Probably it's the same and what they show should work fine. The price is right $5 for 144.

I like what I'm using.

Here is a link that might be useful: footies

This post was edited by fruitnut on Thu, Jun 6, 13 at 9:15

Why footies?

I believe most people use ziplock bags for apples and footies/cloth bags for peaches and plums.

A lot of my apples last year burned in the bags as in the picture. These were zip-lock brand bags and maybe a generic thinner bag would not have such a greenhouse effect. I haven't had trouble with the nylon footies so I'm trying that this year for all the apples. This new batch just seems stretchier than the last batch and don't stay on as well.

I did two sprays of triacizide + immunox this year on everything but my Asian pear tree which has been hit hard by PC. I also have some red apple sticky traps I need to clean and put back up again.

sharppa:

Mine stay on very well. I pull the bag over the fruit, bunch a little of the upper part over and around the top of the fruit or stem, and secure it with a couple of paper staples. Just a little hand paper stapler. Works great, stays on, and is fast.

I bought mine from Home Orchard Society. I bought both regular white kind and the Surround-soaked kind. both are for my peaches. The Surround ones give great protection against PC and OFM but timing of putting them on is very important. I 'm ust in the middle of putting them on peaches. I know I'm late but thought I had a couple of spray in. It should be OK but it's not!!! One of the peaches (PF-1) got hit by OFM about 40% of the fruit (ouch!!).

I can't see the whole plastic bag under your apple in the picture. I hope you cut the two corners at the bottom of the bag off for air circulation.

For me, I trim the top of the bag off to about the ziplock line and cut a small slit in the middle of the bag for an apple stem to go through. When bagging, I only open one side of the bag (to the slit point), slide an apple in, zip lock it. The other side of the ziplock has already zipped. Make my bagging a lot quicker.

Red Spheres with Tanglefoot are generally for apple maggot flies. I hardly see any PC or OFM get trapped on them. You need Surround or other pesticide for those two buggers.

Here is a link that might be useful: Footsies

I have cut the corners off on the ziplock for drainage. I have gone through the trees several times in the summer to manually drain out water if it is stuck in the upper corners.

I guess I could staple the footies or twisty-tie them but it feels like these new bags are just a bit more loose than the last bag I bought several years ago.

On a somewhat related note, I set a havahart trap for the squirrels to cut down the population before the peaches are ripe and got a squirrel in about 5 minutes. That seems to be the main thing that they steal...the peach tree has 3 varieties on it and we usually get the first variety okay but then they all disappear quick after that.

The Seattle Tree Society is another source for the footies. They also carry a larger one with heavier thread for larger apples. I also like to dip mine in Surround and dry before placing on the apples giving excellent protection against both coddling moth and apple maggots. The Surround will also protect against sunburn for those in hotter regions. Both HOS and STFS will mail order. Please help support our fruit clubs. They are both valuable resources for fruit information.

http://www.seattletreefruitsociety.com/maggot-barriers

The Seattle Tree Society is another source for the footies. They also carry a larger one with heavier thread for larger apples. I also like to dip mine in Surround and dry before placing on the apples giving excellent protection against both coddling moth and apple maggots. The Surround will also protect against sunburn for those in hotter regions. Both HOS and STFS will mail order. Please help support our fruit clubs. They are both valuable resources for fruit information.

http://www.seattletreefruitsociety.com/maggot-barriers

Quill,

Now that you remind me, I did order my first white footsies from Seattle Tree Society. The service was nice. There was follow-up on e-mail. I switched to HOS when I looked for the Surround-soaked footsies. At the time Seattle did not offer them.

I would recommend both places for ordering.

I found some on Amazon. FWIW don't mistakenly type in "footsie" if doing a web search. People are dang strange.

can you spray the tree with the footies on fruit?

John222: Yes you can spray the footies after placement on trees. Although I soak pre-placement, I sometime do touch-up Surround sprays with a squirt bottle (most of my trees are under three years) as sometimes we get a fair amount of rain in June.

I assumed you were referring to Surround sprays. You could still spray other things but the Surround is water soluble and may wash off. Adding other ingredients to the Surround spray might decrease it's effectiveness.

Here is a picture of the footies I got from Home Orchard Society. The left one is the same as the ones I have from Raintree. There was a note inside about usage and the one key point was that these footies are not elastic. When putting them on, don't stretch them out the whole way. Only slide them on as tight as you can. I think my problem earlier in the year was I was stretching them out to put them on.

The tanner footies (about 1/3 the bag) are larger and not very useful so far. I'll post a follow up picture of them both stretched out.

Here's a picture of the two types of footies all stretched out.

I do like them soaked in Surround. They are stiffer than the non surround ones and less stretchy.

Does everyone wash them at the end of the season and re-use them? Prior years without fungicide spray I had enough discoloration on the bags I did not want to save them.

I see that someone has just offered some Japanese apple bags for sale on ebay. Look for Japanese apple bags from the ebay home page and you should find them. They might be good to try.

Rinse the footies then put them in te dryer for 30 minutes and they should shrink back to normal

This year the Home Orchard Society will be selling them with a packet of Surround that can be used to soak them at home, rather than offering a choice of soaked or unsoaked (disclaimer: I'm closely affiliated with the HOS)

Raintree also sells them sans surround. They're catalog says this year they are using a denser weave for more protection. I don't know how their previous and current offerings compare to others.

There are several vendors on ebay that sell them very cheaply, marketed as try-on disposable socks for sanitary purposes. I can't speak to the quality.

Hi, I made an order for the Surround-soaked footies from http://fruitsoxsandmore.com which seems to be the same as the Home Orchard Society but it has been more than two weeks and I have not received them nor heard from Ted. I wouldn't recommend purchasing from them.