A NEW FRUIT TRAINING SYSTEM: THE 'SOLEN'

Some varieties can naturally regulate their production from year to year, facilitating the pruning and thinning in orchards. These cultivars belong to the INRA type IV (Lespinasse, 1980). That allowed us to test out a new fruit training system, the 'Solen', which is particularly adapted to these tip bearers. The apple breeding programme at the INRA Fruit Breeding Station of Angers on scab resistance has been directed towards obtaining this fruiting type.

According to its tendency to acrotony or basitony each variety, when unpruned, presents an original way of branching around the leading shoot. The use of the natural organisation by the fruit grower promotes earliness of fruiting; as in the case of 'Vertical Axis' training (Lespinasse and Delort, 1984) which leads to:-

• the opening of the crotch angle;
• the pre-disposition of the shoots to floral induction;
• the formation of an important number of vegetative points towards a fruit destination.