UE HORTI

The UE HORTI sets up experimental facilities to study the behaviour of perennial plants (fruit trees or ornamental plants) and/or their host of bio-aggressors and auxiliaries.

The services offered by the UE Horti range from grafting and raising seedlings in nurseries to setting up analytical or system orchards. The 83 ha of UAA (53 ha of which are currently planted with orchards) in a degraded temperate oceanic zone make it possible to carry out major arboriculture trials (in terms of surface area or number of replicates) in order to:

• Testing no-input, low-input (fungicides, herbicides, irrigation, manures and fertilisers), Organic Farming or Integrated Fruit Production methods,
• Studying the effects of climate change on the phenology of fruit species,
• To safeguard genetic diversity and carry out experiments and phenotyping in orchards to help identify genetic traits.
• Identifying major genes for resistance to diseases and pests (apple/scab and rose/black spot pathosystems).
• Substitute phytosanitary inputs with biocontrol or biological control methods, the use of various Plant Defence Stimulators to control scab but also other diseases and pests, biological control of codling moth (Cydia pomonella) using a parasitoid insect of exotic origin, Mastrus ridens.