Natural Pest Predators

Natural Pest Predators. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Farmers are always looking for a way of getting a higher yield from their crop whether it's wheat, corn or tree fruit. Having the fruit stolen right off the branches is very frustrating as most cherry orchardists know. Keeping birds away from the trees is a constant battle. Ben Dover knows all too well those difficulties. He estimates that he was loosing close to 20 percent of his crop to hungry birds. That is until a retired manager for the Department of Fish and Wildlife suggested he install a kestrel nesting box. DOVER: Well I put up a couple of them in my 5 acre orchard cherry orchard in Yakima. That was in 2003 and then in 2004 the hawks came to one box and it just protected my orchard, all of my orchard, 5 acres and part of the neighbors. It seems the small attractive kestrels are extremely territorial and will either scare away or kill other birds and rodents. DOVER: And what they do is come and build a nest in your box and then they're there a month for their eggs and then a couple more months to raise their young. It works perfect for the cherry season. Cherries, blueberries, peaches. They're buying them for grapes and apples but this will be the first year I'll be getting reports on those. But so far I've been getting good reports that the hawks are nesting and decreasing the number of birds. Dover sold his orchards and is now concentrating on the manufacture of kestrel nesting boxes. DOVER: I've got 469 of them out now all the way from Tonasket down into Oregon, Tri-Cities, a couple in Canada and a few in Montana. You can contact Dover via his email at bsdover@msn.com. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.