I dont cover either, Jim. If It is a warm day, I will set a kleenex over the pollenation, and remove it the following day.
Depends on your climate, Don. In my area, hips just rot if I wrap in foil. (I don’t cover them with anything at all) Fortunately I don’t often get animals interfering with the development of pollinated hips. However, I have to sow my seeds in tight rows in flats and the flats are housed in a wire mesh cage to prevent mice from digging up and eating the seeds! I then have to transplant them into 3" pots after the first leaves show up. Tedious, but I have no other choice.
Don:
I belong to the never wrap a hip group, but I am just starting back up – but I can tell you I used to use aluminum tags to mark my crosses and they occasionally caused burn – but I live in New Orleans where it gets really hot and I would not use aluminum for any purpose. I would also hesitate to use aluminum because of its reflective qualtites if you live in a very sunny location even if it is not very hot – I had some reflective burns on parts of my plants that were not in direct contact with the aluminum. Your climate may allow it. Also, in my urban environmemt I never had any problems with vermin so I did not have the pressure to protect that I detect elsewhere. From what I’ve read I’ll state the obvious – it sounds like there are a lot of variables and one size does not fit all. Bob