NETTING NOTES

Question

When’s the right time to place nets over feijoa and other fruit trees to prevent guava moth damage?

Answer

It depends on the variety of tree, the weather, and pollination. The insect netting that keeps out guava moth also excludes bees, other pollinating insects, and birds. Pollination is the transfer of pollen from the male part of a flower to the female part, which can be on another flower on the same tree or a nearby tree of the same type. Some fruit trees are self-fertile, meaning they don’t need pollen from a different variety to bear fruit but they do still need bees and insects to transfer pollen. However, many fruit trees do require cross-pollination to bear fruit, and often pollen from a different variety of the same type of tree gives best results. Some varieties of feijoa are self-fertile, but even these bear more and larger fruit if cross-pollinated. The main pollinators of feijoas are bees, bumble bees, and small to medium sized birds like silvereye, tūī, blackbird, myna and thrush. So, you need to check your trees regularly and put netting on as soon as flowering of each variety is finished, when the young fruitlets are just starting to develop. I’ve seen feijoa trees covered before flowering even started, which prevented pollination, so the end result was no fruit at all.