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"Milk Jug" Fly Traps
“Since I started using this idea I’ve never bitten into an apple or other piece of fruit with a worm in it,” says Paul Olson, Ogilvie, Minn., about the way he controls bugs in his orchard without using any chemicals.
   “Whenever I plant a new fruit tree I place a 1-gal. milk jug, with a solution of 1/3 water, 1/3 vinegar and 1/3 sugar – about 2 cups of each – next to it. Later as the tree grows, I place the jug in the lower crotch of the tree, secured with a piece of twine. The bugs are attracted to the smell of the solution and can’t get back out of the jug. I catch everything from horse flies to deer flies to mosquitoes, and all kinds of other bugs that I can’t even identify.”
  Olson mixes the solution in a 5-gal. bucket and uses a funnel to put it into jugs. Once a year he tosses the old jugs and puts out new ones. He also raises honey bees, but they don’t go into the jugs.
  “You’d be surprised at the number and kinds of bugs I find in the jugs. Each jug will have a 1-in. thick layer of bugs in it by fall.
  “It’s an old trick that I learned from my stepdad. I’m 77 years old, and he was already using this idea when I was born. I grow everything from apples, pears, plums, apricots, cherries, and Kiwis and try to grow everything as chemical-free as I can. After 41 years of growing fruit I haven’t sprayed my orchard yet. Of course, having a flock of Guinea hens and chicks around doesn’t hurt either,” he says.
  Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Paul C. Olson, 1278 Delta St., Ogilvie, Minn. 56358 (ph 612 390-0672; redbird@genesiswireless.us).


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2011 - Volume #35, Issue #5