[nafex] Question about pruning pomes for fruit production

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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