Production Practices and Quality Assessment of Food Crops. Vol. 1

124 S. Pereira-Lorenzo and A. M. Ramos-Cabrer
Figure 7. Grower re-grafting an old tree to change the cultivar without removing the tree. The same
tree has been grafted at least four times.
including data of productivity. Paglietta and Bounous (1979) made a new classification
of Italian cultivars in ‘marron’ or chestnut types, differentiating two types
of marroni in Italy: Marrone Fiorentino or Casentinese and Marrone Piemontesi
and synonymies.
Solignat et al. (1975) and Solignat and Chapa (1975a and b) described the
French cultivars, and classified them into main or local interest. Those descriptions
are updated by Bergougnoux et al. (1978) but focused in clonal selection of
the main cultivars, and including hybrids that were used in the new plantations mixed
with European chestnut as in Cevennes (Figure 8).
Bergougnoux et al. (1978) clarified the term ‘marron’ and is now internationally
accepted that it should be used for those cultivars producing less than 12% of
the fruits poly-embryonic, naming those cultivars producing more than 12% as
chestnut type.
In 1987 the Official inventory of French cultivars was published and to promote
some of them (Chapa, 1987) describing 13 recommended cultivars, 29 secondary
and 13 in experimental stages.
In 1988, UPOV (Unión Internacional para la Protección de las Obtenciones
Vegetales) published a guideline to test the distinction, homogeneity and stability
of chestnut cultivars so as interspecific hybrids by 39 characteristics. Main characteristics
in classification were the male and female flowering, percentage of