Selecting Stone Fruit Crops and Varieties - Growing Organic Orchard Fruits - page 269

On the positive side, peaches and nectarines mature quickly and begin
bearing marketable crops 3 to 4 years after planting. The trees are naturally
small and can be grown with or without trellising.
Varieties. Of all the fruits described in this topic, peaches are, by far, the
hardest to make recommendations for. Many peach varieties are available,
covering a wide range of growing regions and ripening times, from spring to
fall. In 1995, Modern Fruit Science listed 102 peach and 25 nectarine variet-
ies recommended for commercial and home production. As the authors pre-
dicted, the number of commercially available, high-quality varieties is far
greater today. There are several reasons for the dramatic increase in peach
varieties:
▪ The trees are relatively short-lived, and there is constant pressure from
growers, processors, and marketers to develop new varieties.
▪ Peaches are probably the easiest tree fruit to breed as, unlike apples or
pears, a high percentage of the seedlings strongly resemble their parents
and meet selection standards.
▪ Peaches flower at a young age, allowing for early evaluations and selec-
tions.
In short, there are far more good peach varieties available than we can cover
in this chapter. In areas with large-scale peach production, such as California
or New Jersey, commercial peach growers are advised to consult with Coop-
erative Extension fruit specialists in selecting varieties. In addition, a fairly
recently released series of 'Flamin' Fury' peach and nectarine varieties mer-
its testing. They are not listed in table 6.5 ➔ because they have not yet been
widely tested and are not recommended by many fruit specialists outside of
New Jersey.
Arkansas and North Carolina have taken the lead in developing peach
varieties resistant to bacterial blight. Varieties that show good overall qual-