How To Protect Cherries And Cherries From Birds? Tips And Tricks For Crop Protection

2023 Author: Ava Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 07:13

Moving to live in a country house, I dreamed of putting a birdhouse on my plot. So I wanted to hear the birds singing, to know that they are helping you in the garden, eating caterpillars and bugs, and to pay them with good, giving them housing and providing a drinking bowl with water for the hot period. However, the surging troubles, and the protracted decision: what type of bird house to choose (after all, which bird will settle in it depends on the size of the birdhouse), did not allow the desire to come true in time. And the spring has passed. But it turned out that there are many birds in this area without my birdhouse, and they all found a place to live, sang in the morning, plucked young greens from the beds, and then … Then they decided to eat my cherries …

Now I no longer dream of a birdhouse, but I am thinking: how can I protect my crop from cute feathered gluttons, so that they do not harm them, and it’s easier for myself. After searching the Internet, asking friends, I sketched out a list of possible options, one of which may be useful to you.

How to protect crops from birds?

Unfortunately, not only cherries and cherries, but also strawberries, blackberries, and sea buckthorn have to be protected from starlings and sparrows. In a word, the struggle can drag on until late autumn, therefore, if there is something to defend, you can experiment in order to know exactly the best method of preserving the fruits of your labor next season. Until then, here are the basic ways to scare away birds.

1. One of the oldest, old-fashioned, methods of saving the harvest is the use of rustling objects. Pieces of cellophane, plastic bags, and (if any) tape from old cassettes are suitable here. The main thing is that these objects should be conveniently fixed on the branches and that they, developing in the wind, emit a sound unusual for birds.

2. You can scare off the bird lads and glitter. New Year's rain, damaged computer disks, reflective tape, foil plates, refracting the sun's rays will scare the birds, forcing them to stay away from your garden.

3. Covering young trees with non-woven covering material left over from covering the beds, with a film, or simply with old sheets fixed to the edges with clothespins, is a fairly reliable means.

4. Very often, modern gardeners recommend throwing fine mesh on trees. At the same time, there are options for their temporary and stationary installation, as well as the choice of material for their manufacture.

5. Relying on the fact that birds are frightened off by white color, white strips of fabric or film, fixed on the peripheral branches of the crown, are a good solution. And in the question of strawberries - a white canvas stretched along the garden bed.

6. Some guidelines state that birds do not like both blue and red. Therefore, you can try to hang or install flags of a given color in the garden.

7. A rather interesting solution is homemade turntables made of plastic bottles. Mills, twists, birds - moving under the gusts of wind scare away sparrows, chase away starlings, and at the same time decorate the garden, breaking the monotony of hot summer days with their cheerful thrill.

8. The smell of onions has a repellent effect. The chopped heads can be, periodically renewed, hung on the branches of young trees.

9. An innovation of recent years is electronic sound scarers and thunderbolts, emitting the sounds of birds of prey, scaring away feathered pests with repeated pops or the sound of a siren, frightening them with a bright flash of light.

10. There are also special gels made from extracts of plants unpleasant for birds, exuding a repulsive smell for them.

That is, perhaps, all that was found. However, this is not enough. Let's start experimenting!

A bit of statistics in defense of birds

Our attitude towards feathered neighbors fluctuates from positive to negative for a reason. As helpers in spring and early summer, sparrows, starlings, and even tits become pests during the ripening period. However, if we evaluate their good deeds, it turns out that without the birds, our gardens will be more difficult than with them.

So, a sparrow, feeding offspring, collects from 500 to 700 insects per day, most of which are pests of agricultural crops. Their list includes: apple blossom beetle, leafworm, bread turtle, May beetle, nectar silkworm caterpillars and other unpleasant inhabitants of our gardens and vegetable gardens. In addition, in winter, sparrows, feeding on plant seeds, destroy a large number of weed seeds.

Starlings are no less hardworking. In one daylight hours, only one pair of birds eats about 300 g of insects and their larvae. Thus, in order for the garden to be healthy, according to scientists, it should work from 2 to 4 pairs of sparrows, 1-2 families of starlings and at least 2 pairs of tits, which destroy up to 400 pests per day. for one adult couple.