Fruit quality prediction on cider apple: effect of annual fruit load, soil and climate

Monitoring during 12 years, a network of about twenty plots in commercial orchards was used to analyse the respective influence of soil, climate and trees load, on fruit quality at harvest for two important varieties of cider apples: Douce Coëtligné and Douce Moën. A first analysis was conducted to compare the quality results of the two cultivars, to define the load levels and soil types able to explain some of the fruit variability, and to propose a first prediction of the quality at harvest ac