Guy Ligonniere, right, shows the small bin trailers used during harvest. French apple breeder Joris Nicolleau is on the left. At Davodeau-Ligonniere, a vertically integrated grower-nursery-packer, great emphasis is placed on profitability. Varieties planted in their commercial orchards must be moneymakers or they are replaced. French growers are always looking for new varieties, said Guy Ligonniere, head of D-L, which has a nursery, orchard, and two packing houses near Angers, France, and its knip tree nursery near Chartres. “The French are lucky because they have many climates to grow a lot of different varieties,” he said, adding that early and […]