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The English Apple Man joins the Under 40s in The Loire Valley |
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01/Mar/2011
Diary of the English Apple Man
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The English Apple Man joins the Under 40s in The Loire Valley
The Under 40's Conference 2011
At the rather mature age of 68+ The English Apple Man joined the young people on which the future of our fruit industry depends. Their enthusiasm and ideas will create the momentum which will determine whether we can recoup our share of the UK top fruit market which has been steadily eroded over the last 40-50 years. The theme for this year's Conference; "CHANGING CROPS for CHANGING CLIMATES"
Sponsors
The opportunity for members of the Under 40's Conference Group to visit growing regions in other countries is due in no small measure to the support of sponsors, as without their financial support the cost per delegate would be prohibitive.
On Wednesday evening after our arrival at The Hotel du France in Angers The Organising Committee introduced a seminar featuring some of the sponsors who travelled with The Under 40's.
Presentations from Marks & Spencer. Agrovista. Bayer Cropscience Ltd. Fresca Group Ltd. and Pro Tech Marketing outlined the support each company is making towards the success of UK Fruit Growing.
The North West region of France is one of four key regions of Top Fruit production in a country which has been traditionally a source of much of the imported apples found on UK Supermarket shelves. This is now changing rapidly, with UK production of modern 'global' varieties steadily winning back the shelf space.
The high dependence on exports which drove decades of expansion in France has it seems passed it's 'sell by date' as this export market has diminished, so the French growers have felt the pain we experienced as our UK industry declined in the face of the imported competition. Of course, it is not just the loss of exports to the UK but increasing competition for export markets from other export orientated fruit growing countries around the world.
It is no surprise then, that as demand for French Apples fell away, many growers in France have either rationalised their orchard area, or in many cases, left the industry completely. In the NW region around Angers over 1,000 hectares (2,400 acres) of top fruit have been grubbed up.
In February of 2004 the French Ministry of Agriculture announced that it will spend $62 million over a five year period to support conversion from traditional to organic farming. From conversations with informed sources in France the conversion to organic may have been overdone and the supply may exceed the demand, which will drive down their prices and may well leave many growers no better off!
Visit itinerary
Our first visit was to The Nursery and Orchards of Pepenieres Davodeau Legonniere on Thursday morning; here we saw the complete process from creating the 'stool beds' lifting rootstocks, budding rootstocks with the variety and lifting 'maiden' trees ready for new orchard plantings.
Our host Laurent Legonniere also took us to the families orchards where we saw the increasingly successful variety Jazz as mature orchards yielding 70 tonnes per hectare; double the tonnage of UK Jazz orchards.
After a most enjoyable lunch in a converted Windmill we move onto the 55 hectare vineyard of Monsieur Lebreton at Domaine des Rochelles. This is an appellation controlle enterprise producing 250,000 bottles each year. While the tour of the winery and the tasting afterwards was enjoyed (increasingly with each glass) by all of our party, the earlier visit into the vineyard where we were given a thorough explanation of how the influence of soil and climate combined with grape variety determine the quality of the wine. Managing the pruning is also critical and we all came away with a much better understanding of pruning the different grape varieties.
On Friday we visited Monsieur Billotte at Arboconseil and Pepinieres Multibaies where we learnt about Blueberry plant production and visited the orchards where the 'fruit wall' system of apple growing is well established.
In fact we met both father and son. Matthieu Billotte gave us a detailed overview of Global Blueberry production and how he has developed his specialist Blueberry Nursery. He sells 50% of his plants to Garden Nurseries and 50% to commercial growers in France and other countries; while there we tasted blueberries from Morrocco grown on plants sold by Mattieu to the Morroccan grower.
His father Bruno Billotte shares his expertise as an advisor with CTIFL and production of Apples on the family farm.
Our prime interest was the 'fruit wall' system initiated at CTIFL but put into commercial application by Bruno Billotte on the family farm.
The reason for the fruit wall is to reduce manual input with a mechanical pruning system. Driven by high labour costs in France making labour intensive farming uneconomic.
On Friday afternoon after yet another memorable lunch at The 400 year old Troglodyte Caves, we moved onto our last visit to Monsieur Traineau, a producer of Cherries, Apples and Lettuce.
The purpose of our visit was the Cherry Orchards. The system for growing there calls for 4 metre tall trees which in turn require mobile platforms for picking. Pruning is done mechanically, creating a 'fruit wall'
Of the visits we made, this system of Cherry production, although very productive, does not appear to offer any advantages over the current production systems on the modern intensive Cherry Farms in England. Potential yields seem similar while the taller trees in France require investment in motorised picking platforms.
Monsieur Traineau and his family have just opened a Farm Shop selling many cherry an apple flavoured products.
For the final night in Angers we gathered at The Hotel du France for the Gala Dinner. Afterwards Will Sibley a former Master of The Worshipful Company of Fruiterers delivered the after dinner speech.
Take care
The English Apple Man
source: http://www.theenglishappleman.com |
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