Topic: Pigeons and fruit

[Sarah-b]

A topic on another board has just reminded me of a question I have:
On our pigeon-plagued-plot, I would like to plant 1 or 2 fruit trees. Ideally I'd like fruit from them next year. And ideally I'd like not to share any of it with the wretched greedy pigeons.
Would a golden plum fit the bill? or an apple, or pear?

[derbex]

Pigeon stuffed with plum sounds nice  ;D

[Sarah-b]

You are not wrong.
As a follow up to my original question, I was going to add another about whether anyone traps/shoots pigeons - but thought that might upset some members.

Sarah.

[Tenuse]

We have a lot of pigeons on our plot (have to cover brassicas or they're gone), and there are also a lot of fruit trees, we hav four apples in fruit on our plot and I have not seen any pigeon damage on them (yet).

Ten x

[ALAN HOWELL]

No I haven't seen pidgeon damage to fruit trees on our lottie either,I think they prefer to nick stuff at ground level rather than hang at oblique angles in fruit trees   ;D  ...so I think you would be pretty safe to go ahead,anyway you could always throw a net over them (the pidgeons or the fruit  ;D)when the fruit is forming,that should keep the blighters off.....Alan

[sandersj89]

Pigeons wont bother apples, plums or pears as far as I know. They love elderberries though and will strip a tree in hours if you are un lucky.

You may get problems from other birds though, blackbirds in particular like to eat fruit. Especially plums and cherries. Also you may have problems with wasps.

If you do you can cover the whole tree is small ebough with fleece or fine mesh.

HTH

Jerry

[Mrs Ava]

Pigeons strip everything at ground level on our site, so the fruit trees seem to be okay, and we have elderberries, apples, pears, plums, sloes and grapes.

Ava shoots wabbits but has never had a go at the pigeons.