THE APPLE-CRUNCHERS ®

of Ile-de-France
department of Val d'Oise

Fruit exploration

since 2001

Plaine de France and Vallée de Chauvry


The survey area
Survey protocol
Pears
Apples
Cherries
Plums
 
The old pear trees of Chauvry Road
   

This website is complementary to the official website of Les Croqueurs de pommes d'Ile-de France (in French only).


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THE SURVEY AREA

 

The exploration is being carried out in several parts of the French department of Val d'Oise (20 to 40 km north of Paris), chiefly in the areas named "Plaine de France" and "Vallée de Chauvry".
The fruit trees much likely to be found are pear trees and apple trees. Stone fruits are located in the "Vallée de Montmorency".

Fully (+) or partially (-) explored villages:
Plaine de France: Mareil (+), Belloy (-), Ezanville (-), Le Mesnil-Aubry (-), Châtenay (-), Epinay-Champlâtreux (-), Fontenay (-).
Vallée de Chauvry: Baillet (+), Chauvry (+), Béthemont (+), Villiers-Adam (+).
Others : Montsoult (+), Maffliers (+), Nerville (+), Saint-Martin (-), Viarmes (-) Domont (+), Piscop (+), Sarcelles (-), Saint-Brice, Saint-Prix, Jagny (-), Gascourt (-), Bellefontaine (-).

To which is to be added, outside the area but still in the Val d'Oise, the village of Epiais-Rhus, in which a full inventory of the fruit heritage was made in the year 2002.


WHERE ARE THE OLD FRUIT VARIETIES TO BE FOUND ?
Where the old trees are, i.e.:
   1. in old traditional orchards
The oldest orchards are the pear-trees orchards. These trees can live for more than 100 years. The apple-trees orchards are hardly ever more than 80 years old.
   2. along the roads, paths, trails, etc.
There are almost exclusively pear-trees.
   3. in gardens
This is where the highest probability is of founding old apple-trees, because they have often been looked after by their owners (removing mistletoe, for instance).

REMARKABLE TREES
The biggest pear-tree found is 3.50 m in circumference. It is located in Pontpoint (Oise) and the pears are called "Couillard" by its owner.
The biggest pear-tree of la Plaine de France is 3.40 m in circumference. It is located in Fontenay.
The biggest pear-tree of Mareil is 3.20 m in circumference . It has no visible graft point. It is the most beautiful of all.
The biggest grafted pear-tree of la Vallée de Chauvry is 3 m in circumference. It bears fruits of a variety resembling "Poire d'Angleterre"
.
The biggest apple-tree discovered until now has a circumference of 2.15 m. It is not a grafted tree. It is located in the L'Isle-Adam Forest.
The biggest grafted apple-tree discovered has a circumference of 1.90 m.

FRUIT TREES ENEMIES
Apart from urbanization, building of roads and reparcelling of lands, the enemies of the fruit trees are, in order :

1. horses, who eat trees bark and so kill all the fruit trees growing in their fields. At present, they are the first to be blamed for the disappearing of the old fruit trees from the region.
2. mistletoe, which can destroy an apple orchard in less than 10 years. (It does not infect pear-trees.)

 

 

 

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Last update : July, 2007