Pomme du Limousin opens harvest as orchards shrink
Growers began picking Pomme du Limousin apples on September 7, in a Haute-Vienne region that has lost more than half its protected orchards in twenty years.
Producers began picking Pomme du Limousin apples on September 7 in Haute-Vienne, opening a 2026 harvest that will test an AOP orchard base that has shrunk by more than half in twenty years.
The season opened at Verger Bio de Quinsac, an organic and biodynamic family orchard in Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche, where grower Murielle Ferand is also harvesting pears and chestnuts this autumn. Unlike recent years, she told regional broadcaster Kaolin, the farm found experienced seasonal pickers without difficulty this time.
Pomme du Limousin by the numbers
Golden apples still dominate the harvest, but the region has lost half its orchards in twenty years.
The Syndicat de défense de l'AOP Pomme du Limousin counts 194 registered producers farming 2,308 hectares, according to trade outlet Réussir. Golden apples make up 75% of the crop, the only apple variety in France to carry its own AOP, a status held since 2007.
Of the roughly 80,000 tonnes the region produced in 2023, only 5,400 tonnes, about 8%, met the AOP's stricter standards on size, sugar content and appearance.
Growers face heat stress, uneven yields and shifting regulations this season, the local outlet Le Gral reported at the harvest's launch, on top of the pressure of marketing a premium apple against cheaper imports.
An orchard footprint in retreat
Limousin's apple orchards have lost 55% of their surface over the past twenty years, with 38% of that decline concentrated in the last decade alone, Réussir reported. Tree renewal is running at 3.4% a year, below the 5% growers say is needed to keep production stable.
"Quality cannot be achieved on aging orchards," the syndicate's president, Laurent Rougerie, has said, pointing to woolly aphids and late-harvest quality losses on older trees as a growing drag on output.
The apple harvest follows a hard year for French produce more broadly: this year's French wine harvest is on track for its smallest volume since 1957, while the Drôme's Valence en Gastronomie festival returns this autumn to champion regional producers.
Cooplim, the largest cooperative in the AOP zone, has invested in thermotherapy and solar power to cut costs since 2018. Whether that is enough to slow the orchard decline will show up less in this year's harvest total than in how many growers plant new trees next spring.
