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Apple cultivation has evolved tremendously in past decades. Both apple productivity and aesthetic quality of the fruit have been strongly improved resulting from genetic improvement, optimization of tree training and pruning, and orchard design and management. However, these improvements were also done at the expense of an increasing dependence on external inputs such as water, fertilizers and synthetic pesticides. This dependence is now questioned because of the generated environmental pollutions and health issues. In the last decades, an increasing amount of initiatives have been developed that open the way towards more sustainable apple production systems. Concepts as well as on-station and on-farm works are developed in various contexts such as 'integrated fruit production', 'organic farming' and 'agroecology' with the objectives to increase biological regulations of pests and diseases and/or to improve soil fertility. All together results point out the importance of diversifying resources and habitats for beneficial arthropods in the orchard and its vicinity to foster ecosystem services related to pest suppression and to adopt cultural practices enhancing soil fertility. They also indicate some practical guidelines consisting in a better management of grass alleys and lining hedgerows within and around the orchard, respectively. From a more prospective view and taking inspiration from tropical fruit-tree based agroforestry, these works suggest that combining apple trees with other herbaceous and woody plants with various uses (soft fruit, aromatic plants, etc.) opens to more resilient agroecosystems, possibly mitigating climate change. These works also enlarge our vision of the current apple orchard towards a multiproduction system including apple among other productions. From the 'plant science' point of view the idea to grow apple in agroecosystems challenges current knowledge of the plasticity of the apple tree physiology and architecture, and agronomic performance, in response to interactions with neighbouring plants. It also stimulates necessary collaborations with other research fields such as socio-economics, for example on how the grower may handle those complex agroecosystems, optimize labour and valorize production.

Apple cultivation has evolved tremendously in past decades. Both apple productivity and aesthetic quality of the fruit have been strongly improved resulting from genetic improvement, optimization of tree training and pruning, and orchard design and management. However, these improvements were also done at the expense of an increasing dependence on external inputs such as water, fertilizers and synthetic pesticides. This dependence is now questioned because of the generated environmental pollutions and health issues. In the last decades, an increasing amount of initiatives have been developed that open the way towards more sustainable apple production systems. Concepts as well as on-station and on-farm works are developed in various contexts such as 'integrated fruit production', 'organic farming' and 'agroecology' with the objectives to increase biological regulations of pests and diseases and/or to improve soil fertility. All together results point out the importance of diversifying resources and habitats for beneficial arthropods in the orchard and its vicinity to foster ecosystem services related to pest suppression and to adopt cultural practices enhancing soil fertility. They also indicate some practical guidelines consisting in a better management of grass alleys and lining hedgerows within and around the orchard, respectively. From a more prospective view and taking inspiration from tropical fruit-tree based agroforestry, these works suggest that combining apple trees with other herbaceous and woody plants with various uses (soft fruit, aromatic plants, etc.) opens to more resilient agroecosystems, possibly mitigating climate change. These works also enlarge our vision of the current apple orchard towards a multiproduction system including apple among other productions. From the 'plant science' point of view the idea to grow apple in agroecosystems challenges current knowledge of the plasticity of the apple tree physiology and architecture, and agronomic performance, in response to interactions with neighbouring plants. It also stimulates necessary collaborations with other research fields such as socio-economics, for example on how the grower may handle those complex agroecosystems, optimize labour and valorize production.

Conventional fruit-tree farming systems are highly productive and strongly dependent on external inputs, including pesticides, fertilisers, and water. To reduce this dependence, various initiatives have been developed in past decades, such as Integrated Fruit Production, Organic Farming, and more recently, Agroecology which is strongly inspired by research in ecology. These initiatives include plant diversity as the main driver to improve the sustainability of the orchard. Plant diversity can either be planned (choice of productive and not productive species) or associated (unintentional) and at different scales (within the cultivated plot and/or the surrounding landscape). To increase plant biodiversity, companion, i.e., mostly non-productive, plants can be either herbaceous, bushes, or trees. The interest of plant diversity to improve the sustainability of agrosystems is documented from three points of view: composition, structure, and function. First, companion plants have to fulfil precise functions within the system, such as sustaining nitrogen provisioning (e.g., herbaceous legumes between fruit-tree rows), hosting natural enemies of main pests, or attracting herbivore insects outside the orchard. Recent works on agroecology analyze fruit-tree based agrosystems documenting fruit production and the various “services” (e.g., mitigation of CO2 emission, soil nitrogen availability) companion plants can provide. Second, to optimise plant functioning, it is necessary to define rules of plant assemblage at spatial (e.g., distance between plants) and temporal (e.g., plantation at the same time period or not) levels. Based on a literature survey and current experiments, we will show that agrosystems that combine trees grown for fruit and possibly for timber or firewood and agricultural crops, i.e., fruit-tree based agroforestry systems (FT-AFS), provide promising results in the temperate climate context, including the Mediterranean zones. Further, the introduction of plants providing pest regulation services opens to challenging perspectives toward friendly fruit-tree-based agrosystems.

Conventional fruit-tree farming systems are highly productive and strongly dependent on external inputs, including pesticides, fertilisers, and water. To reduce this dependence, various initiatives have been developed in past decades, such as Integrated Fruit Production, Organic Farming, and more recently, Agroecology which is strongly inspired by research in ecology. These initiatives include plant diversity as the main driver to improve the sustainability of the orchard. Plant diversity can either be planned (choice of productive and not productive species) or associated (unintentional) and at different scales (within the cultivated plot and/or the surrounding landscape). To increase plant biodiversity, companion, i.e., mostly non-productive, plants can be either herbaceous, bushes, or trees. The interest of plant diversity to improve the sustainability of agrosystems is documented from three points of view: composition, structure, and function. First, companion plants have to fulfil precise functions within the system, such as sustaining nitrogen provisioning (e.g., herbaceous legumes between fruit-tree rows), hosting natural enemies of main pests, or attracting herbivore insects outside the orchard. Recent works on agroecology analyze fruit-tree based agrosystems documenting fruit production and the various “services” (e.g., mitigation of CO2 emission, soil nitrogen availability) companion plants can provide. Second, to optimise plant functioning, it is necessary to define rules of plant assemblage at spatial (e.g., distance between plants) and temporal (e.g., plantation at the same time period or not) levels. Based on a literature survey and current experiments, we will show that agrosystems that combine trees grown for fruit and possibly for timber or firewood and agricultural crops, i.e., fruit-tree based agroforestry systems (FT-AFS), provide promising results in the temperate climate context, including the Mediterranean zones. Further, the introduction of plants providing pest regulation services opens to challenging perspectives toward friendly fruit-tree-based agrosystems.

Fruit production should be adapted to future scenarios that are frequently associated with scarce resources, especially freshwater and fertilizers. New biologically-based fruit production strategies, i.e. taking into account tree growth and water status, are required to optimize irrigation and fertilization under abiotic stress conditions. It was hypothesized that a moderate abiotic stress, here deficit irrigation with or without nitrogen deficit, in the preharvest period, could decrease postharvest losses due to diseases and pruning weights due to reduced vegetative growth, without sacrificing the yield and fruit quality. This study was conducted over two years using the same trees of ‘Moncante’ nectarine cultivar grown in a commercial orchard. Trees were assigned to three treatments: (1) full irrigation at 80% estimated crop evapotranspiration (ETc), (2) deficit irrigation, i.e. at 75% of full irrigation, and (3) deficit irrigation and deficit nitrogen, i.e. at 75% of full irrigation and 75% of usual N-fertilization adopted by the grower in this commercial orchard. Deficit irrigation alone and in combination with deficit nitrogen reduced postharvest diseases and pruning weights without significant yield losses. Our results suggest that ETc-based approaches of reduced water irrigation may be a sustainable way to decrease phytosanitary inputs and workload in the orchard while maintaining the orchard performance.

Fruit production should be adapted to future scenarios that are frequently associated with scarce resources, especially freshwater and fertilizers. New biologically-based fruit production strategies, i.e. taking into account tree growth and water status, are required to optimize irrigation and fertilization under abiotic stress conditions. It was hypothesized that a moderate abiotic stress, here deficit irrigation with or without nitrogen deficit, in the preharvest period, could decrease postharvest losses due to diseases and pruning weights due to reduced vegetative growth, without sacrificing the yield and fruit quality. This study was conducted over two years using the same trees of ‘Moncante’ nectarine cultivar grown in a commercial orchard. Trees were assigned to three treatments: (1) full irrigation at 80% estimated crop evapotranspiration (ETc), (2) deficit irrigation, i.e. at 75% of full irrigation, and (3) deficit irrigation and deficit nitrogen, i.e. at 75% of full irrigation and 75% of usual N-fertilization adopted by the grower in this commercial orchard. Deficit irrigation alone and in combination with deficit nitrogen reduced postharvest diseases and pruning weights without significant yield losses. Our results suggest that ETc-based approaches of reduced water irrigation may be a sustainable way to decrease phytosanitary inputs and workload in the orchard while maintaining the orchard performance.