A MODEL FOR ESTIMATING CHILLING REQUIREMENT OF VERY LOW-CHILL PEACHES IN TAIWAN

Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute imported a series of low-chill peach and nectarine cultivars and clones from USA and Japan.
Subsequently a peach breeding program was established in 1980 to address soil erosion and water source contamination caused by temperate fruit trees cultivated in highlands.
The new cultivars have created a new industry and the growing area has extended from the traditional high-land stone fruit zone to subtropical low-land area.
A chilling requirement evaluation method was developed for the indigenous cultivars and the new cultivars by relating bloom timing with key cultivars for the regions.
In order to improve the evaluation of the chilling requirement, more than 19 years of flowering date and temperature records were accumulated to develop a Taiwan-based low-chill model using least square analysis of more than 3.3 million data points.
The values of chill unit (CU) were estimated for 3 new peach cultivars, 2 indigenous cultivars and 2 elite selections and ranged from 140 to 180 CU.

VII International Peach Symposium

Ming-Te Lu, Chia-Wei Song, Shyi-Kuan Ou, Chi-Ling Chen

Prunus persica, chill requirement, Taiwan low-chill model

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2012.962.35