ISHS Acta Horticulturae 199: II International Workshop on Temperate Zone Fruits in the Tropics and Subtropics
PEACH AND NECTARINE BREEDING IN FLORIDA |
| Authors: | S.G. DeWald, W.B. Sherman |
| Abstract:
Peach and nectarine Prunus persica (L.) Batsch breeding has been conducted at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida for over 30 years. More than 200 000 crosses have been made with the release of 11 peach and 7 nectarine cultivars. The major emphasis of the program has been to develop large, high quality, low chill fruit cultivars with short fruit development periods. Low chill germplasm from the Florida breeding program has been widely accepted throughout the world, and is currently being grown and evaluated in over 60 countries. Peaches, Prunus persica (L.) Batsch, were first introduced to Florida as seeds brought by the early Spanish explorers. These Spanish type peaches were characterized by their small, generally white, melting fleshed fruit with a relatively long fruit development period (FDP). These peaches have a very low acceptability in the United States where the well developed commercial fresh fruit industry prefers the large, yellow, non-melting flesh type peaches. In 1952 Prof. Ralph H. Sharpe started the first Florida peach breeding program at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The nectarine gene was introduced into the program four years later (Sharpe, 1971). The goal was to develop large fruited, high quality, early ripening peaches and nectarines for Central Florida. To meet the objective of early ripening fruit, the peaches and nectarines would have to have relatively low chilling requirements, and short FDPs. Furthermore they would have to bloom after the last frosts of February, and ripen before the rainy season in early June when disease problems, particularly brown rot caused by the fungus Monilinia fructicola (Wint.) Honey, become economically uncontrollable. The breeding of low-chilling peaches began in California in 1907. South Africa initiated a breeding program in the late 1940's, followed shortly afterward by Campinas, Brazil (Sharpe, 1969). All low-chilling peaches have presumably originated either directly, or indirectly from South China (Sherman et al., 1984). The improvement of fruit quality in the low-chill peaches and nectarines at the University of Florida has progressed steadily since its inception in 1952. The major emphasis was on crossing the small fruited low-chilling types with the large fruited, high quality Northern types. The low-chill requirement of the Florida peaches and nectarines has been derived from three main sources: a group of open-pollinated seeds brought from Okinawa, a group of seedlings originating from the Chino, California program (Sharpe et al., 1969), and local Spanish type peaches. | |
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