Product Summary (Registration No.99)

Registration No.99 山形ラ・フランス

Registered name (Transcription) : 山形ラ・フランス（Yamagata La France）
Reference information : Yamagata La France

Category of product

Class 1 : Products of Agricultural Origin (Pear) 

Production Area

Yamagata Prefecture

Registered Group

Yamagata Prefecture La France Promotion Association

Characteristics

Yamagata's la France pear fully expresses the superior qualities of this variety of pear--dense flesh, juiciness, distinctive fragrance, and delicious taste. High quality is maintained constantly and kept consistent across individual fruits. This has been achieved by rigorous implementation of community-wide quality control measures established by local producers, including well-managed pruning and fruit-thinning regimes, and timely shipping that allows time for post-harvest ripening.

Link with the Production Area

Prefectural government initiatives for encouraging the production of la France pears for fresh consumption began during the 1980s. Public-private partnerships embarked on the development of cultivation techniques, and in 1988, knowhow for forecasting harvest times, and methods of post-harvest ripening, both of which provided the foundation for the later establishment of "base dates" for shipping, was established by the prefectural lab for agricultural crops (today's Yamagata Integrated Agricultural Research Center Horticultural and Agricultural Experiment Station).
Yamagata Prefecture is one of the country's most ideal locations for la France production. Reasons include smaller rainfall comparative to other prefectures between June and September, when risk of disease and pest is at its highest; and diurnal temperature ranges of between 9.4 and 10.3 °C during August and September, when the fruits store nutrients.