North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Elizabeth Hilborn <ehilborn@mebtel.net>]

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