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International audience; The French apricot production is located in the southeastern part of the country with a focused zone in the Rhone valley and close to the Mediterranean Sea. The north of Rhone valley is characterized by a continental climate while the southern region (Rhone valley and Mediterranean area) is characterized by a typical Mediterranean climate. Due to economic and adaptation constraints the apricot fruit production depends on the development of a specific range of cultivars in the different areas of cultivation. In order to enlarge the panel of, a breeding program is developed at a national level in France with the participation of CEP INNOVATION, CENTREX and INRA. The main goals of the breeding program are: the elaboration of cultivars suitable for a durable production (including resistance to pests and diseases), production regularity (including self-fertility and quality of the flowers), and fruit quality (including taste, attractiveness, and suitability for the transport). Out of a first evaluation stage in nursery, based on a MAS approach targeted onto sharka susceptibility and Self-fertility, the agronomical evaluation is performed in orchard and followed by an evaluation of the pre-selections after grafting in the 3 main areas of cultivation for integrating the adaptability. Then the ‘elite’ agronomic and commercial assessments are conducted in small orchards. The main results issued from this program are here presented with 10 blushy and purple-red cultivars including five PPV resistant ‘Aramis®’ cultivars.

International audience; ILLIAD is a French national project in which food-chain sustainability is being evaluated on four products ( wheat, rice, peach and apricot). For apricot, two difficulties for French production have been identified: i) the high cost of manpower in this culture and ii) fruit processors' dependence on surplus fruits from fresh consumption. This leads to very high variability in supply, price and quality from year to year. In this context, one solution might be dedicated orchards for processing industries. At first, cultivars well adapted to processing and with a low demand for inputs were screened for their behavior in mechanical harvest. Mechanical harvest was carried out using tree shaking ( at 40 cm from the ground) and collection on a fabric screen. Results obtained over 2 years on more than 15 cultivars and in two production areas are presented. The low mechanical damage observed just after harvesting or after 7 days of storage for a few cultivars and the possibility of optimizing shaking parameters according to agronomic and physiologic criteria ( fruit falling, maturity heterogeneity, etc.) confirm the suitability of mechanical harvesting and the opportunity to create dedicated orchards.

The French apricot production is located in the South-Eastern part of the country and focused both in the Rhone valley and close to the Mediterranean Sea. The north of the Rhone valley is characterized by a continental climate while the southern region (Rhone valley and Mediterranean area) is under warm typical Mediterranean climate. Obviously apricot fruit production depends on a specific panel of cultivars in each area of cultivation due to economic and adaptation constraints. In order to enlarge the panel of cultivars to be developed by the growers in each region an integrated breeding program is developed at a national level in France with the participation of INRA, CENTREX and CEP INNOVATION. The main goals of the breeding program are: the elaboration of cultivars suitable for a durable production (including resistance to pests and disease), production regularity (including self-fertility and quality of the flowers), and fruit quality (including taste, attractiveness, and suitability for the transport). The evaluation phase is organized in the 3 main areas of production (Perpignan, Nimes, Valence) and follows 3 complementary evaluation stages (i) observation of the hybrid on its own roots; (ii) evaluation of the best hybrids after grafting in the 3 main areas; (iii) assessment of the agronomic and commercial interest of the 'elite' accessions in small orchards. The main results issued from this program are presented: 8 registered cultivars, 4 new selections under registration, and the first PPV resistant cultivar 'Aramis' ® 'Shamade'.

INRA, CENTREX and CEP INNOVATION are developing new apricot cultivars for French growers with particular attention paid to consumer's expectations. The main objectives of the related breeding programme are: production regularity, fruit quality and attractiveness. Their evaluation is based on a multilocal and pluri-annual set of trials located in the three major French areas of cultivation and organised as a 3-stage-evaluation: (i) observation of the seedlings on their own roots (ii) evaluation of the best grafted selections in the 3 main areas, (iii) assessment of the agronomic and commercial interest of the 'elite' accessions in small commercial orchards. At the end of the selection process two recent main types of cultivars have been introduced: - Ten new cultivars able to enlarge the harvesting season by 'conventional' type of fruit ('Soledane', 'Solimar'@, 'Candide', 'Bergerval'@, 'Bergarouge'®, 'Royal Roussillon', 'Vertige', 'Fantasme'@, 'Helena du Roussillon'®, 'Frisson'); - Three new fruit-type apricots characterized by a stark red blush covering 80% of the fruit shape, developed under the same trademark, 'Rubisco'@ (Ravival, Ravilong and Ravicile).

International audience; French apricot production is located in the south-eastern part of the country, with a focused zone in the Rhone valley and close to the Mediterranean Sea. The north of the Rhone valley is characterized by a continental climate, while the southern region ( Rhone valley and Mediterranean area) is under a warm, typically Mediterranean climate. Obviously, apricot fruit production depends on the development of a specific panel of cultivars in each area of cultivation because of economic and adaptation constraints. In order to enlarge the panel of cultivars for growers of each region, an integrated breeding program has been developed at a national level in France with the participation of INRA, Centrex and CEP Innovation. The main goals of the breeding program are: the elaboration of cultivars suitable for durable production ( including resistance to pests and diseases), production regularity ( including self-fertility and quality of the flowers), and fruit quality ( including taste, attractiveness, and suitability for transport). The evaluation phase is organized in the three main French areas of production ( Perpignan, Nimes and Valence) with three complementary evaluation stages: ( i) observation of hybrids on their own roots ( ii) evaluation of pre-selections after grafting in the three main areas, and ( iii) 'elite' agronomic and commercial assessments in small orchards. A tough diagnosis, that includes biological, serological and molecular analysis, is conducted in parallel for assessing resistance to Plum pox virus ( PPV). The main results issued from this program are presented here, with 10 cultivars, including PPV-resistant Aramis (R) cultivars.

National audience

International audience; Collaborative research was conducted at the INRA Research Centers to assess the microbial control potential of Beauveria bassiana- and Lecanicillium lecanii-based formulations against whiteflies in protected crops under Mediterranean conditions. Four series of small-scale glasshouse trials were performed in 1999 and 2000 in southern France. Two applications at 4-5 day intervals of Naturalis-L and Mycotal were conducted on young larvae of the greenhouse whitefly, Trialeurodes vaporariorum, at rate's recommended by the manufacturers. Because of the expectation that environmental conditions prevailing in Mediterranean greenhouse crops may lead to greater climatic constraints for mycoinsecticide efficacy than in more temperate areas, manipulation of the greenhouse climate has been used to aim at optimizing mycoinsecticide efficacy. The climatic management strategy was mainly based on closing the ridge vents 2 h more at night-time in so-called "humid" glasshouse compartment than in a "dry" one. Thus, the daily period at high humidity (>90% RH) was two or three times longer in the "humid" compartment than in the "dry" one. In spite of this differential, mycoinsecticide treatments reduced numbers of surviving whitefly larvae by >85% in the "humid" compartment as expected as favorable, as well as in the "dry" compartment, expected as unfavorable. The results indicated clearly that both B. bassiana- and L. lecanii-based mycoinsecticides have a strong potential for microbial control of whitefly larvae infesting tomato crops at moderate ambient humidity in Mediterranean glasshouses. Our investigations provided strong arguments for explaining these unexpected results. The RH conditions prevailing in the targeted insect habitat should be greatly disconnected from that of the ambient glasshouse air. We suggest that strategies of mycoinsecticide optimization against phyllophagous insects in protected crops have to take into account factors acting on the leaf transpiration activity. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

In June 2008, tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) plants cv. Fer De Lance (De Ruiter Seeds, Bergschenhoek, the Netherlands) grown in greenhouses near Perpignan (southern France) showed growth reduction and necrotic lesions on fruits, stems, and basal parts of the leaves. Tomato torrado virus (ToTV) was suspected on the basis of symptoms and its recent description in Spain (4). Primer set A (3), designed to ToTV RNA-2, was used for reverse transcription (RT)-PCR experiments on RNA extracted from four infected plants and allowed the amplification of a 493-bp fragment. No amplification was observed from healthy plant extracts. The RT-PCR product was directly sequenced (GQ303330) and a BLAST search in GenBank revealed 99.8- and 99.5%-nt identity with Polish (EU563947) and Spanish type strain (DQ388880) isolates of ToTV, respectively. Double-antibody sandwich-ELISA tests were conducted on these four samples to check for the presence of other viruses commonly found in tomato crops in France. Tomato spotted wilt virus, Parietaria mottle virus, Cucumber mosaic virus, Tomato mosaic virus, and Potato virus Y were not detected but Pepino mosaic virus (PepMV) was detected in all samples. ToTV was mechanically transmitted to Physalis floridana but PepMV was not. This plant was used to inoculate healthy tomatoes that served as a ToTV source for further experiments. Mechanical inoculation to test plants showed that Nicotiana benthamiana, N. clevelandii, N. debneyi, N. glutinosa, Capsicum annuum, Solanum melongena, and some tomato cultivars (including Fer De Lance), in which typical necrotic symptoms were observed, were systemically infected by the virus. Isometric particles ~28 nm in diameter were observed by electron microscopy in crude extracts of infected plants negatively stained with 1% ammonium molybdate, pH 7. To confirm ToTV identification, whitefly transmission experiments were performed with Trialeurodes vaporariorum and Bemisia tabaci. Adult whiteflies were placed in cages with infected tomato plants for 1-, 24-, or 48-h acquisition access periods (AAP) before transferring them by groups of ~50 on susceptible tomato plantlets placed under small containers (six plants per AAP). Forty-eight hours later, plants were treated with an insecticide and transferred to an insect-proof containment growth room. Ten days later, RNA preparation from all plants was tested by RT-PCR for the presence of ToTV. No transmission was observed with a 1-h AAP. With a 24-h AAP, transmission to four of six test plants was observed with both whitefly species, while at 48 h, AAP transmission to three and four plants of six was observed with T. vaporariorum and B. tabaci, respectively. Noninoculated control plants were all negative by RT-PCR. These experiments confirm T. vaporariorum and B. tabaci as natural vectors of ToTV as previously described (1,2). ToTV has been already reported in Spain, Poland, Hungary, and Australia, but to our knowledge, this is the first report of ToTV in France. Our detection of ToTV in April 2009 from the same area revealed 7 positive tomato plants of 17 tested. This observation suggests the persistence of the disease in the Perpignan Region. References: (1) K. Amari et al. Plant Dis. 92:1139, 2008. (2) H. Pospieszny et al. Plant Dis. 91:1364, 2007 (3) J. Van der Heuvel et al. Plant Virus Designated Tomato Torrado Virus. Online publication. World Intellectual Property Organization WO/2006/085749, 2006. (4) M. Verbeek et al. Arch. Virol. 152:881, 2007.