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  • From: Elizabeth Hilborn <ehilborn@mebtel.net>
  • To: mailing list at ibiblio - Northamerican Allied Fruit Experimenters <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [nafex] Question about pruning pomes for fruit production
  • Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2015 21:01:48 -0400

Thanks Lee,
All of my apples are on dwarfing stock but one, maybe that is why I have enjoyed some success with the method.
Betsy

On 3/30/2015 2:05 PM, Lee Reich wrote:
My experience in WI, MD, and NY is that the Lorette method does not work
reliably. I either got dead stubs or vigorous regrowth, rarely spurs.
Horizontal training does work. Lorette pruning was developed in northern
Europe, which has, or had, a much more equable and consistent temperatures
and rainfall than most of continental U.S. as well as quite different
photoperiod. (New York City, for instance, is about the same latitude as
Madrid.

All this depends, to a large extent, on the tree. Dwarf rootstocks increase
the likelihood of spurs developing with any treatment, as do certain
varieties. Asian pears are especially prone to making fruit spurs. Put a
precocious variety on one of those dwarfing rootstocks and the plants can't
help but make spurs.

Lee Reich, PhD
Come visit my farmden at http://www.leereich.com/blog
<http://www.leereich.com/blog>
http://leereich.com/ <http://leereich.com/>

Books by Lee Reich:
A Northeast Gardener's Year
The Pruning Book
Weedless Gardening
Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden
Landscaping with Fruit
Grow Fruit Naturally

On Mar 29, 2015, at 1:58 PM, Elizabeth Hilborn <ehilborn@mebtel.net> wrote:

Hi folks,

I have a specific question about training and pruning pomes for fruit
production.

I recently attended a pruning workshop where the instructor told us that the
way to achieve maximum fruit production was to train laterals to the
horizontal.

However, I have been practicing the Lorette method described by Louis
Lorette and published in English in the early 1920s in this country. I have
been able to produce fruiting spurs on my laterals by this method, but it is
just my observation that the technique may be preferred, I have no real
'control' trees with horizontal training alone, so do not know relative
success rates.

Here is a description of Lorette method from :
http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_h/h-312.html

/"Typically, summer pruning is a selective training procedure aimed at
weakening vegetative growth while promoting flower initiation. It consists of
cutting current season's shoots back to three to five mature leaves after they
have grown about a foot, and about the diameter of a pencil, and have started to
become woody at the base. Flowering spurs often develop at pruning cut sites as a
result of weakening the vegetative growth, but flowering is also increased
throughout the tree because of better light penetration./

/An alternative procedure, developed in France by L. Lorette about 55 years ago,
is to cut the shoot about 1/4-inch to 1/2-inch above its base, leaving a short
stub. This ensures regrowth will come from the less well developed buds near the
shoot base. Growth from these buds is weaker and more readily transformed into
fruiting wood. The Lorette method is preferable to leaving longer stubs, which not
only produce more regrowth, but are usually stiffened in an upright position as a
result of the pruning/."

Does anyone know if horizontal training alone, the Lorette approach alone, or
a combination of methods produce the most fruit?

Thank you for any information you can provide.

Betsy Hilborn

7a, NC







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