Fruit Tree Lecture

Last Saturday I attended a lecture at Lieutopie by Jean-Pierre Couturier, from the Association Croqueurs de pommes ('apple crunchers') [link]. The Association is there to provide advice about growing fruit, with a particular focus on heritage varieties of fruit trees. Following the lecture Jean-Pierre is going to do a session on pruning at the community orchard.

So here is a summary of the information which stood out for me:

• Sainte Catherine plums, an old local variety, were developed from the damsons that Eleanor of Aquitaine brought back from the Holy Land after the Second Crusade. It is only found in Touraine and Burgundy.
• Olivier de Serres, whose descendent of the same name is a friend of ours, is the first to explain in writing how one plants a tree, in the 17th century. He advises lots of animal manure in the hole. He is also the first to start describing some varieties.
• Jean-Baptiste de la Quintinie, director of the royal fruit and vegetable gardens during Louis XIV's reign in the 17th century was the first to describe in detail how to grow fruit and vegetables. He was famous for being able to grow fruits and vegetables out of season in order to satisfy the whims of the King, such as asparagus in December.
• Charles Baltet (1830 - 1908), from a long line of nurserymen, and whose family continue the business today, developed a hundred varieties of pears and apples, and wrote 'The Art of Grafting and Budding', still the bible for fruit tree grafting today. From 1869 he was one of the horticulturalists who worked to solve the problem of phylloxera in French vines, propogating French varieties onto resistant American root stocks, a technique which saved the French wine industry.
  
• Today there are about a thousand varieties of apple in France.
• Delbard, one of the oldest plant nurseries in France, are your go to for fruit trees these days in France.
• Grafting was practiced by the Chinese 3000 years ago. Its main purpose is to reproduce a variety.
• Peaches don't like calcareous soil, but almonds tolerate it, so peaches are grafted on to almond stock for areas like the Touraine.
• When you prune it too hard a fruit tree puts all its energy into getting the canopy balanced with the roots and doesn't produce fruit.
• Apples should be kept in a cool damp ventilated space, so many of the limestone cellars in the Touraine are ideal.
• Mercier is a local heritage variety of apple from the Lochois. It is a large fruit with bright red striations, which is an excellent cooker. It is a good keeper and doesn't bruise easily.
  
• Framboise d'été is a Ukrainian variety of apple which adapted and changed in France after being grafted.