Lot-et-Garonne: Plum harvest disrupted by heat

Heatwaves have pushed plum growers to start growing earlier. In Saint-Sylvestre-sur-Lot, Olivier Poitrenaud is committed to organic prunes, despite the vagaries of the climate.

This year, the traditional plum harvest began earlier and will end before the end of August. This is due to the heat and sunshine, which accelerate the transformation of fruit acid into sugar. Olivier Poitrenaud and his seasonal workers began harvesting the first ripe Ente plums on August 8. This schedule disrupted the schedule of this plum grower, who is also the director of the APO Bois company in Pinel-Hauterive. During the two-week harvest, he has a dual role: wood processor in the morning and farmer in the afternoon.

Growing plums was almost a given for Olivier Poitrenaud, who has known this orchard on the heights of Saint-Sylvestre-sur-Lot since his adolescence. He was already helping with the harvests in the 1990s. Eighteen years later, when the owner of the ten hectares of plums put the estate up for sale, he naturally became the buyer. Initially, the young plum grower did not settle there completely and made numerous trips back and forth to fulfill his professional responsibilities within the SNCF in Brussels. Then, eager to come and establish himself locally, Olivier Poitrenaud joined Tisseo in Toulouse in 2011. "I wanted to live in the middle of an orchard," confides the man who settled permanently in Lot-et-Garonne in 2016 with the acquisition of the company APO Bois, which notably manufactures racks, the eponymous tool of the prune production method.

The sixty-year-old loves prunes even though they're a "random and technical crop." "If there's a problem at the slightest stage, everything stops," he explains about the bundling method. In mid-August, there are seven of them around the imposing machine. The rest of the year, Taiyeb Ayad is the farm's only employee. Recruiting seasonal workers is a known problem in the plum industry. "Harvesting conditions are difficult and demanding," acknowledges Olivier Poitrenaud.

The harvested plums are washed and sorted in a salt bath, bringing those sufficiently sweet to the surface. They are then "calibrated," that is, sorted by rollers into two sizes: small and large. The plums are arranged on racks, wooden trays with a stainless steel mesh. These steps are essential before placing the plums in the oven at 85 degrees. "If it's too hot, a crust forms around the fruit, but if it's too humid, it bursts," explains Olivier Poitrenaud. Far from being a simple cooking process, it's about finding the temperature balance between heat and humidity so that the water escapes from the plum. To achieve this, the trolley of fresh plums is added after those already in the oven, which self-regulates thanks to this rotation every two and a half hours. In periods of high heat, the fruit dries out more quickly. Faced with the summer heatwaves, it took an average of fifteen hours for the plum to become a prune, compared to twenty in other years.

The 5,000 plum tree farm has initiated a gradual transition to organic farming since 2019. This significant gamble has halved fruit production, which has the benefit of selling for twice the price. For example, a conventional farm will produce four tons per hectare compared to two tons per hectare in organic farming. For his seventeenth harvest, his third organically, Olivier Poitrenaud has a mixed yield. Although the hailstorms have spared him, he has to deal with the codling moth, a butterfly that attacks nearly one in two plums. This insect stings the fruit to lay its eggs. The plum is then devoured from the inside by the plums and eventually falls to the ground. "Organic farming is doable with the right products, but it takes some learning," explains Olivier Poitrenaud, who is already planning to change methods and use a repellent, a natural barrier on his plums for next year. Despite these setbacks, Olivier Poitrenaud does not "regret choosing organic" and can count on the support of his colleagues from the Agrobio 47 association.

Olivier Poitrenaud, who is very vigilant about promoting his products, advocates for a diversified prune industry. "Of course, dried prunes keep the chain alive all year round, but semi-cooked prunes offer an even higher quality dish," explains the man who supports the Compagnons du Pruneau in their innovation around soft, semi-cooked plums.