Potential of Nonmelting Flesh Peaches for the Early Season Fresh Market

Abstract

The post-harvest behavior of commercial, moderate-chill, melting flesh peach [ Prunus persica(L.) Batsch] cultivars (‘Flordaking’, ‘Flordacrest’, ‘June Gold’ and ‘Juneprince’) was compared to recently released nonmelting flesh cultivars (‘Gulfking’, ‘Gulfcrest’, ‘Gulfcrimson’ and ‘Gulfprince’) over four seasons. Storage protocol was designed to approximate conditions likely to be encountered during shipment to market via refrigerated truck and subsequent retail marketing, i.e. 5 d at 4°C followed by 2 d at 20°C. The nonmelting flesh cultivars displayed superior post-storage firmness compared to current commercial melting flesh cultivars. Additionally, the nonmelting flesh cultivars generally displayed superior cropping ability, fruit shape, red skin blush, ground color development, and soluble solids/titratable acidity ratios. Moreover, they generally were of comparable marketable size and had a reduced incidence of split and shattered pits. This suggests that these new nonmelting flesh cultivars merit testing as alternatives to current commercial melting flesh cultivars.