Tarnished plant bugs feed on many plants, especially clovers and other legumes, and they move up into trees causing the most damage during the weeks during and after bloom. Birds, opossums and raccoons love to eat stone fruits, and can steal your whole crop in just a few nights. The most effective control for both pests is wrapping the entire tree in plastic netting. This should be done as soon as the fruit begin to color up and soften, at least several weeks before harvest. The netting must completely enclose the tree canopy, and be secured firmly around the trunk.
Netting also protects tree limbs and fruit spurs from breakage and damage by raccoons.
If carefully applied and removed, most netting can be reused for many summers. Tart cherries and the European type plums or prunes such as 'Stanley' which are well adapted to New York conditions are partially self-compatible, but will usually set better crops with a different variety blooming nearby. There are usually plenty of wild bees, flies, beetles and other insects to transfer pollen among the profuse and colorful blooms of stone fruits. The wood of stone fruits is flexible and often breaks when trees are heavily cropped. This limb breakage can be avoided by spreading branches outward with braces or weights to create a crotch angle around 60 from the vertical trunk.