Collection orchards on the island of Porquerolles
Half-wild, half-cultivated, Porquerolles offers a mosaic of Provencal landscapes. These magnificent sites are home to an exceptional heritage treasure: an orchard with over 700 varieties of fruit trees!
The Provencal landscapes of Porquerolles are home to an orchard of over 700 varieties of Mediterranean fruit trees. This unique collection is managed by the Conservatoire Botanique National Méditerranéen, which also has a seed bank containing over 2,000 plant species. An essential gene pool for preserving biodiversity and combating the standardization of stalls.
Resisting the standardization of stalls
This unique collection includes many "terroir" varieties no longer found on the continent since the arrival of industrial agriculture: over 290 varieties of olive trees, representative of the French, Italian and Spanish olive-growing heritage, 300 varieties of fig trees from all over the Mediterranean basin, 50 varieties of mulberry trees from all over the world, over 200 local varieties of peach trees from Provence and the Rhône Valley, over 60 varieties of apricot trees and over 22 varieties of almond trees!
A veritable bastion of traditional Provencal orchards, the Conservatoire's mission is to safeguard Mediterranean fruit varieties.
The origins: rebuilding traditional orchards
Ever since he arrived in Porquerolles in 1978, a year before the Conservatoire was founded, Jean-Pau Roger, an agricultural engineer in charge of managing the estate and variety collections, has worked tirelessly with one goal in mind: to reconstitute the traditional Provencal orchard "where everything could be found", in order to prevent the disappearance of old, hardy varieties, a regional and national heritage. For over 20 years, he has criss-crossed the most isolated Provençal countryside in search of forgotten local fruit varieties. It's a real detective job. "We made enquiries at town halls and knocked on the doors of village elders to gather information. We interviewed hundreds of elderly farmers...". These cuttings from the four corners of Provence were grafted and still flourish today on the grounds of Porquerolles, which is home to a national reference collection.
The best way to discover them is to lose yourself in the orchard in the company of a guide on an "Espirt parc national - Port-Cros" tour.