Articles
Retrospection of century-long peach chill, yield and other production data and implications for breeding
Article number
1352_54
Pages
391 – 398
Language
English
Abstract
Peach (Prunus persica) production is complicated.
Seasonal yield depends on the performance of a sequence of many cultivars with the cooperation of favorable climatic conditions.
Peach chilling requirements, in terms of cumulative chill hours, must be satisfied during winter dormancy to ensure timely bud break and maximize potential yield.
In this report, some century-long peach chill, yield, and other production data sets from Byron, GA and the US were analyzed to show the trends and relationships among those factors, as they relate to breeding prospects for peaches.
Chill hours at Byron, GA, varied greatly year by year, but the averages of every three, five, and ten years all showed a declining trend.
Viewed by months, the smallest to largest declining slopes in turn were October, November, December, January, and February, suggesting declines in the last two months contributed most to the declining annual chill hours.
Annual chill hours over the last century approximated a normal distribution using 100-h bands ranging between 500 and 1700 chill hours, with a mean of 1044. Years with chill hours below 700, 700-899, 900-1299, 1300-1499, and above 1500 accounted for 3.2, 21.3, 62.3, 9.8, and 3.2% of the total years, respectively.
It appeared that chill hours in the higher ranges occurred more in the earlier 5 decades (average 1087 h) than the more recent 5 decades (959). Peach production yields both in GA and the US changed from year to year and also steadily declined over the past century.
The significantly lowest yields occurred mostly in years with spring freeze and/or chill inadequacy.
However, both farm values and price per ton increased steadily over time, suggesting that increasing prices might sustain similar market values and profits with smaller yields.
The potential use of the data and results in determining future peach cultivar breeding objectives was discussed.
Improvement of genetic traits with resilience to unfavorable weather conditions is likely among the priorities to offset or minimize the negative impact on peach yield.
Seasonal yield depends on the performance of a sequence of many cultivars with the cooperation of favorable climatic conditions.
Peach chilling requirements, in terms of cumulative chill hours, must be satisfied during winter dormancy to ensure timely bud break and maximize potential yield.
In this report, some century-long peach chill, yield, and other production data sets from Byron, GA and the US were analyzed to show the trends and relationships among those factors, as they relate to breeding prospects for peaches.
Chill hours at Byron, GA, varied greatly year by year, but the averages of every three, five, and ten years all showed a declining trend.
Viewed by months, the smallest to largest declining slopes in turn were October, November, December, January, and February, suggesting declines in the last two months contributed most to the declining annual chill hours.
Annual chill hours over the last century approximated a normal distribution using 100-h bands ranging between 500 and 1700 chill hours, with a mean of 1044. Years with chill hours below 700, 700-899, 900-1299, 1300-1499, and above 1500 accounted for 3.2, 21.3, 62.3, 9.8, and 3.2% of the total years, respectively.
It appeared that chill hours in the higher ranges occurred more in the earlier 5 decades (average 1087 h) than the more recent 5 decades (959). Peach production yields both in GA and the US changed from year to year and also steadily declined over the past century.
The significantly lowest yields occurred mostly in years with spring freeze and/or chill inadequacy.
However, both farm values and price per ton increased steadily over time, suggesting that increasing prices might sustain similar market values and profits with smaller yields.
The potential use of the data and results in determining future peach cultivar breeding objectives was discussed.
Improvement of genetic traits with resilience to unfavorable weather conditions is likely among the priorities to offset or minimize the negative impact on peach yield.
Publication
Authors
Chunxian Chen
Keywords
Prunus persica, chilling requirement, chill inadequacy, spring freeze, breeding
Groups involved
Online Articles (87)