In August Neil Macdonald was part of a group of English growers who were invited by J R Breach, suppliers of fruit trees and root stocks, to visit the nurseries and orchards of Pepinieres du Valois at Villers-Cotterets in Northern France.
Neil reports “PdV is one of the largest apple nurseries in the world and the scale of the operation was absolutely amazing. The company is part of the International New Varieties Network (INN), founded in 1995, which specialises in the development of new fruit varieties worldwide. The membership of INN accounts for around 18 million finished trees and 38.5 million rootstocks annually.
I was pleased to be able to see some of the trees they are growing for us and very happy with progress to date.
It is always good to step outside the box and see what is happening elsewhere in the business. The rest of the group came mainly from Kent and the east of England and it was valuable to see things from their point of view.
The area of french cider orchards is not going up and production is pretty much static, unlike ours. This year they are expecting a fair crop, with 80% of all cider fruit going through one processor.”
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