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The peach (Prunus persica) is a deciduous tree first domesticated and cultivated in China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and the glossy-skinned, non-fuzzy varieties called nectarines. Peaches and nectarines are the same species, though they are regarded commercially as different fruits.
The tree is regarded as handsome and is planted in gardens for its springtime blooms in addition to fruit production. The peach tree is relatively short lived, usually not exceeding twenty years of age. However, the peach fruit is regarded as a symbol of longevity in several East Asian cultures.
The specific name persica refers to its widespread cultivation in Persia (modern-day Iran), from where it was transplanted to Europe and in the 16th century to the Americas. It belongs to the genus Prunus, which also includes the cherry, apricot, almond, and plum, and which is part of the rose family.
The peach is very popular; only the apple and pear have higher production amounts for temperate fruits. In 2023, China produced 65% of the world total of peaches and nectarines. Other leading countries, such as Spain, Turkey, Italy, the U.S., and Iran lag far behind China, with none producing more than 5% of the world total.
DescriptionEdit
The peach is a deciduous tree or tree like shrub that may very rarely grow to as much as Template:Convert tall, but is more typically Template:Cvt with large specimens reaching Template:Cvt.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The spread of the crown is similar to the height, ranging from 3 to 4 meters.Template:Sfn They never produce suckers or have thorns.Template:Sfn Unlike with apples the size of peach trees is not generally controlled by dwarfing rootstocks in commercial orchards.Template:Sfn A great variety of growth habits have been selected including columnar, dwarf, spreading, and weeping.Template:Sfn In order to have a single trunk trees must pruned and likewise the branches have a tendance to droop over time and must be trained to allow for access under the tree.Template:Sfn The bark on the trunk and branches is dark gray with horizontal lenticels. It becomes more scaly and rough as the tree becomes older.Template:Sfn The root system is deep on peach trees and the roots of peach trees continue to grow during the winter season.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Twigs on peach trees have a smooth, hairless surface, the bark is usually red, but may be green on the sides not exposed to the sun.Template:Sfn As they become older branchlets weather to gray in color.Template:Sfn Twigs have true terminal buds at their ends.Template:Sfn
Peach leaves are oblong to lanceolate, having sides nearly parallel until tapering at end and base or shaped like the head of a spear.Template:Sfn The widest portion of the leaf is midway or further towards the leaf tip.Template:Sfn Each leaf folds along the central rib of the leaf and is often also curved, usually Template:Convert long and Template:Cvt wide, though occasionally they may be shorter.Template:Sfn The surface of the leaves is smooth and hairless, but the leaf stem sometimes has glands.Template:Sfn The edges of the leaves have serrated edges with blunt teeth.Template:Sfn The teeth have a reddish-brown gland at the tip.Template:Sfn Leaves are attached to the twigs by petioles, leaf stems. They are strong and measure 1 to 2 cm. They can also have one or more extrafloral nectaries.Template:Sfn
FloweringEdit
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Flowers on peach trees are either solitary or in groups of two and usually bloom before the leaves begin to grow.Template:Sfn They may range in shades from white to red,Template:Sfn but having pink or red flowers 2–3.5 cm in width is typical of cultivars selected for their fruit.Template:Sfn Trees grown as ornamentals also may have double flowers, semi-doubled flowers, or bicolored forms.Template:Sfn Each flower has four or five petals and is somewhat cup shaped with the petals curving to shelter the flower's center.Template:Sfn Each flower will have 20 to 30 stamens and purple-red anthers at their ends. The single style is nearly as long as the stamens.Template:Sfn The flowers are self-fertile and outcross at about 5%.Template:Sfn
The bloom period is in the early spring, often cut short by frosts, in February, March, April, or May depending on location.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Correspondingly in August or October in New Zealand in the southern hemisphere.Template:Sfn
FruitEdit
Trees can begin producing fruit in the two or three years after sprouting.Template:Sfn Because of the hardness of the seed casing peaches are called stone fruits like the others in the Prunus genus, but are more formally called drupes.Template:Sfn Fruits range in color from greenish white to orange yellow, usually with a blush of red on the side of the fruit most exposed to the sun. Their shape varies wildly from a flattened sphere resembling a doughnut, egg shaped, or a slightly compressed sphere usually with a seam on one side. A normal diameter for a fruit is between Template:Convert, but sometimes they may be as small as Template:Cvt or as large as Template:Cvt.Template:Sfn
The flesh of the peach is quite variable in color from greenish-white to white to yellow to dark red.Template:Sfn The texture can also differ, melting, nonmelting, or stony hard all possible.Template:Sfn
The growth of the fruit is a double-sigmoid growth curve: a beginning quick period of development followed by a resting period of little growth and then a second period of rapid growth.Template:Sfn
The seed of the peach is much larger and less round than the seeds of its closest living relatives.Template:Sfn Unlike the pit of an almond, which is only pitted, the peach pit's stony exterior is both pitted and deeply furrowed.Template:Sfn
TaxonomyEdit
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The peach tree was given the name Amygdalus persica by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 in his book Systema Naturae. The accepted species name of Prunus persica was published by August Batsch in 1801.Template:Sfn Though this was far from settled until the 20th century with many different placements of the peach and even divisions of nectarines and flat peaches into different species. The botanist Ulysses Prentiss Hedrick argued persuasively in 1917 that these differences are merely simple mutations and not species or even varieties beginning consensus towards the modern classification.Template:Sfn This was supported by breeding experiments as early as 1906 showing the hairlessness of nectarines is a recessive trait.Template:Sfn Though sometimes alternative names continue to be used even in the 21st Century with Amygdalus persica being used as recently as 2003 in an authoritative scientific publication.Template:Sfn More than 200 scientific names have been published that are considered synonyms of Prunus persica by Plants of the World Online (POWO).Template:Sfn Though the majority of sources agree on its classification as Prunus persica, there is division on the correct author citation for the name. Most sources, such as POWO,Template:Sfn World Flora Online,Template:Sfn and the Flora of North America give August Batsch credit.Template:Sfn However, a few sources such as World Plants maintained by the botanist Michael Hassler instead credit Jonathan Stokes with priority dated to 1812.Template:Sfn
Prunus persica is classified in Prunus with other stone fruits within the rose family, Rosaceae.Template:Sfn The further classification into a subgenus or section is disputed. The work of Alfred Rehder, published in 1940, has been widely used to group the species of Prunus.Template:Sfn Rehder based his system largely on that of Bernhard Adalbert Emil Koehne with the peach placed with the almond in subgenus Amygdalus because similarities in the rough and pitted stone.Template:Sfn However, since 2000 studies of nuclear and chloroplast DNA have shown that the five subgenera accepted by Rehder are not more closely related to each other than to other species in Prunus.Template:Sfn In 2013 Shuo Shi and collaborators published research where they proposed it be part of subgenus Prunus together with the plums and cherries, but in a section named Persicae, now corrected to Persica.Template:Sfn However, these groupings are not yet widely accepted.Template:Sfn
The greatest genetic diversity in peaches is found in China and where it is generally agreed to have been domesticated.Template:Sfn The species is often thought to be a cultigen, a taxa that has its origins in cultivation rather than as a wild species.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
The closest relatives of the peach are the Chinese bush peach (Prunus kansuensis), Chinese wild peach (Prunus davidiana), the smooth stone peach (Prunus mira).Template:Sfn Though Charles Darwin speculated that the peach might be a marvelous modification of the almond (Prunus amygdalus), research into the divergence of peach relatives shows this not to be the case. Quite the opposite the almond, while in the same genus, is confirmed to be a more distant relative.Template:Sfn
In April 2010, an international consortium, the International Peach Genome Initiative, which includes researchers from the United States, Italy, Chile, Spain, and France, announced they had sequenced the peach tree genome (doubled haploid Lovell). In 2013 they published the peach genome sequence and related analyses. The sequence is composed of 227 million nucleotides arranged in eight pseudomolecules representing the eight peach chromosomes (2n = 16). In addition, 27,852 protein-coding genes and 28,689 protein-coding transcripts were predicted.Template:Sfn
Particular emphasis in this study is reserved for the analysis of the genetic diversity in peach germplasm and how it was shaped by human activities such as domestication and breeding. Major historical bottlenecks were found, one related to the putative original domestication that is supposed to have taken place in China about 4,000–5,000 years ago, the second is related to the western germplasm and is due to the early dissemination of the peach in Europe from China and the more recent breeding activities in the United States and Europe. These bottlenecks highlighted the substantial reduction of genetic diversity associated with domestication and breeding activities.Template:Sfn
Though not a separate grouping genetically, nectarines are regarded as different fruits commercially. The difference is the lack of fuzz, the trichomes, on the skin of the fruits.Template:Sfn Research into the cause of this trait found the transcription factor gene PpeMYB25 regulates the formation of trichomes on peach fruits. A mutation can cause a loss of function resulting in the changed fruit type.Template:Sfn
Fossil recordEdit
Fossil endocarps with characteristics indistinguishable from those of modern peaches have been recovered from late Pliocene deposits in Kunming, dating to 2.6 million years ago. In the absence of evidence that the plants were in other ways identical to the modern peach, the name Prunus kunmingensis has been assigned to these fossils.Template:Sfn Genetic evidence supports a very early emergence of edibility in the wild ancestors of the peach.Template:Sfn
NamesEdit
The genus name Prunus is from Latin for plum. The specific name persica was given by Linnaeus because European botanists of the 1700s and 1800s continued to believe the Roman accounts of peaches originating in Persia to be correct.Template:Sfn
The modern English word – and its cognates in many European languages such as the German {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} and Finnish {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} – also have Latin origins.Template:Sfn In ancient Rome the peach was called {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} or simply {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} meaning Template:Gloss.Template:Sfn This became the Late Latin {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} and in turn the medieval {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. In Old French it was variously the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, or {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. The first usage in England was as the surname Pecche in about 1184–1185.Template:Sfn The French word was directly adopted into English to mean the fruit and spelled either pechis or peches around the year 1400. In 1605 the first known instance of the modern spelling of peach was published.Template:Sfn Peach trees are also, less frequently, called common peaches.Template:Sfn
The various cultivars of peach with smooth skinned fruits are called nectarines. This word was coined by English speakers, originally as an adjective meaning Template:Gloss, from nectar and the suffix -ine, with the first use in print in 1611.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
DistributionEdit
The exact place of origin for the domestic peach is unknown. Based on archeology from the 2010s East China near the Yangtze Delta has emerged as a likely candidate and contradicting the theory of domestication in Northwestern China.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Many sources since the 1980s have listed North China as its likely place of origin.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn They are now naturalized in many other parts of Asia. It grows throughout eastern China and into Inner Mongolia. To the east they are found on the Korean Peninsula and in Japan. To the south they are also found in Vietnam and Laos. In the Indian Subcontinent are reported in the Eastern Himalayas and nearby Assam province, but not Nepal, parts of central India, Pakistan, and the Western Himalayas. Westwards they are also an introduced species in Afghanistan, Iran, and all the countries of Central Asia. Transitioning to Europe they also grow in the North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, and Turkey.Template:Sfn
In Europe the peach trees are partly naturalized. In western Europe they are found in Portugal, Spain, France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. In central Europe they are reported as escaped from cultivation in Germany, Hungary, and Switzerland and in Corsica, Sardinia, Italy, Cyprus, and Greece in the south.Template:Sfn In the southeast they grow as introduced plants in Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn To the east they are found in parts of European Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea.Template:Sfn
They also have escaped from cultivation in the African nations of Libya, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, and the Cape Verde Islands off the northeast coast. Specific areas of South Africa include the biogeographic areas of the Northern Provinces, Orange Free State, and KwaZulu-Natal.Template:Sfn
In North America, in addition to cultivation, peach saplings are often found growing anywhere pits have been discarded. Most of these feral trees are short lived, but some have established naturalized populations.Template:Sfn Such escapes are reported in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Nova Scotia.Template:Sfn Trees outside of cultivation have been found in all of the United States east of the Mississippi excluding Minnesota, Vermont, and New Hampshire. In the northwest they are found in Oregon and Idaho.Template:Sfn In the Southwestern United States they are to some extent naturalized from California to Texas, with the exception of in Nevada. Similar occurrences are also found in the northwest of Mexico and El Salvador in Central America.Template:Sfn
In South America escapees are only reported from Ecuador and the northeast of Argentina.Template:Sfn
In Australia it is naturalized in the states of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia.Template:Sfn In New Zealand it can be found as an escapee from cultivation on both the North Island and south Island, especially around Auckland, Christchurch, and in the Otago region.Template:Sfn It is also naturalized on many oceanic islands including the Mariana Islands, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Réunion, and Saint Helena.Template:Sfn
CultivationEdit
HistoryEdit
Which peaches might be wild type or feral escapes from cultivation is still an open scientific question.Template:Sfn The authors of the Flora of China wrote in 2003 that completely wild peach trees no longer exist and this view is widely accepted.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Although its botanical name Prunus persica refers to Persia peaches originated in China,Template:Sfn where they have been cultivated since the Neolithic period.Template:Sfn From the 1980s to the 2010s it was believed that cultivation started around 2000 BCE.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In 2014 new research was published showing that domestication occurred as early as 6000 BCE in Zhejiang Province on the central east coast of China. The oldest archaeological peach stones are from the Kuahuqiao site near Hangzhou. Archaeologists point to the Yangtze River Valley as the place where the early selection for favorable peach varieties probably took place.Template:Sfn
A domesticated peach appeared very early in Japan, in 4700–4400 BCE, during the Jōmon period. It was already similar to modern cultivated forms, where the peach stones are significantly larger and more compressed than earlier stones. This domesticated type of peach was brought into Japan from China. Nevertheless, in China itself, this variety is currently attested only at a later date around 3300 to 2300 BCE.Template:Sfn
In India, the peach first appeared sometime between 2500 and 1700 BCE, during the Harappan period in the Kashmir.Template:Sfn
It is also found elsewhere in West Asia in ancient times.Template:Sfn Peach cultivation reached Greece by 300 BC.Template:Sfn Alexander the Great is sometimes said to have introduced them into Greece after conquering Persia, but no historical evidence for this claim has been found.Template:Sfn Peaches were, however, well known to the Romans in the first century AD;Template:Sfn the oldest known artistic representations of the fruit are in two fragments of wall paintings, dated to the first century AD, in Herculaneum, preserved due to the Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD, and now held in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.Template:Sfn Archaeological finds show that peaches were cultivated widely in Roman northwestern Continental Europe, but production collapsed around the sixth century; some revival of production followed with the Carolingian Renaissance of the ninth century.Template:Sfn
An article on peach tree cultivation in Spain is brought down in Ibn al-'Awwam's 12th-century agricultural work, Book on Agriculture.Template:Sfn The peach was brought to the Americas by Spanish explorers in the 16th century, and eventually made it to England and France in the 17th century, where it was a prized and expensive treat. Although Thomas Jefferson had peach trees at Monticello, American farmers did not begin commercial production until the 19th century in Maryland, Delaware, Georgia, South Carolina, and finally Virginia.Template:Sfn
The Shanghai honey nectar peach was a key component of both the food culture and agrarian economy the area where the modern megacity of Shanghai stands. Peaches were the cornerstone of early Shanghai's garden culture. As modernization and westernization swept through the city the Shanghai honey nectar peach nearly disappeared completely. Much of modern Shanghai is built over these gardens and peach orchards.Template:Sfn
The first European botanist to argue that the peach did not originate in Persia was Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1855. He argued on the basis of it not being mentioned by Xenophon in 401 BCE or by other early sources that it could not have arrived there much before it was imported to Rome in the 100s BCE. An important western botanist to argue for a Chinese origin of the species was Ulysses Prentiss Hedrick in 1917. Chinese literature records the fruit for at least 1000 years before its appearance in Europe.Template:Sfn
Peaches in the AmericasEdit
Peaches were introduced into the Americas in the 16th century by the Spanish. By 1580, peaches were being grown in Latin America and were cultivated by the remnants of the Inca Empire in Argentina.Template:Sfn
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In the United States the peach was soon adopted as a crop by American Indians. In the eastern U.S. the peach also became naturalized and abundant as a feral species.Template:Sfn Peaches were being grown in Virginia as early as 1629. Peaches grown by Indians in Virginia were said to have been "of greater variety and finer sorts" than those of the English colonists. Also in 1629, peaches were listed as a crop in New Mexico.Template:Sfn William Penn noted the existence of wild peaches in Pennsylvania in 1683.Template:Sfn In fact, peaches may have already spread to the American Southeast by the early to mid 1600s, actively cultivated by indigenous communities such as the Muscogee before permanent Spanish settlement of the region.Template:Sfn
Peach plantations became an objective of American military campaigns against the Indians. In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition destroyed the livelihood of many of the Iroquois people of New York. Among the crops destroyed were plantations of peach trees.Template:Sfn In 1864, Kit Carson led a successful U.S. army expedition to Canyon de Chelly in Arizona to destroy the livelihood of the Navajo. Carson destroyed thousands of peach trees. A soldier said they were the "best peach trees I have ever seen in the country, every one of them bearing fruit."Template:Sfn The Navajo signed a treaty with the US government in 1868 and were able to return to the canyon. They had saved peach pits and some trees resprouted from stumps and so by the 1870s and 1880s many peach orchards had been restored.Template:Sfn
Growing conditionsEdit
Peaches are easiest to grow dry, continental or temperate climates, with conditions of high humidity greatly increasing diseases and pests in subtropics and tropics.Template:Sfn In addition the trees have a chilling requirement. Most cultivars require 600 to 1,000 hours of chilling at temperatures between Template:Convert. During the chilling period, key chemical reactions occur, but the plant appears dormant. Temperatures under Template:Cvt are ineffective for fulfilling the chilling requirement. Once the chilling period is fulfilled, the plant enters a second type of dormancy, the quiescence period. During quiescence, buds break and grow when sufficient warm weather favorable to growth is accumulated.Template:Sfn The chilling requirement is not satisfied in tropical or subtropical areas except at high altitudes with low-chill cultivars, some which require less than 100 hours of suitable temperatures.Template:Sfn
The trees themselves can usually tolerate temperatures to around Template:Convert, although the following season's flower buds are usually killed at these temperatures, preventing a crop that summer. Flower bud death begins to occur between Template:Convert, depending on the cultivar and on the timing of the cold, with the buds becoming less cold tolerant in late winter.Template:Sfn Another climate constraint is spring frost. The trees flower fairly early and the blossom is damaged or killed if temperatures drop below about Template:Convert. If the flowers are not fully open, though, they can tolerate a few degrees colder.Template:Sfn The flowers are also vulnerable to temperatrues higher than Template:Cvt during the day.Template:Sfn
Climates with significant winter rainfall at temperatures below Template:Convert are also unsuitable for peach cultivation, as the rain promotes peach leaf curl, which is the most serious fungal disease for peaches. In practice, fungicides are extensively used for peach cultivation in such climates, with more than 1% of European peaches exceeding legal pesticide limits in 2013.Template:Sfn
Finally, summer heat is required to mature the crop, with mean temperatures of the hottest month between Template:Convert.
Peach trees are grown in well draining soils as they are vulnerable to disease in wet soils. They are most productive in topsoils approximately Template:Convert with a sandy loam character.Template:Sfn
Most peach trees sold by nurseries are cultivars budded or grafted onto a suitable rootstock. Common rootstocks are 'Lovell Peach', 'Nemaguard Peach', Prunus besseyi, and 'Citation'.Template:Sfn The rootstock provides hardiness and budding is done to improve predictability of the fruit quality.
Typical peach cultivars begin bearing fruit in their third year. Their lifespan in the U.S. varies by region; the University of California at Davis gives a lifespan of about 15 years while the University of Maine gives a lifespan of 7 years there.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Peach trees need full sun, and a layout that allows good natural air flow to assist the thermal environment for the tree. Peaches are planted in early winter.Template:Sfn During the growth season, they need a regular and reliable supply of water, with higher amounts just before harvest.Template:Sfn
Peaches need nitrogen-rich fertilizers more than other fruit trees. Without regular fertilizer supply, peach tree leaves start turning yellow or exhibit stunted growth. Blood meal, bone meal, and calcium ammonium nitrate are suitable fertilizers.
The flowers on a peach tree are typically thinned out because if the full number of peaches mature on a branch, they are undersized and lack flavor. Fruits are thinned midway in the season by commercial growers. Fresh peaches are easily bruised, so do not store well. They are most flavorful when they ripen on the tree and are eaten the day of harvest.Template:Sfn
The peach tree can be grown in an espalier shape. The Baldassari palmette is a design created around 1950 used primarily for training peaches. In walled gardens constructed from stone or brick, which absorb and retain solar heat and then slowly release it, raising the temperature against the wall, peaches can be grown as espaliers against south-facing walls as far north as southeast Great Britain and southern Ireland.
StorageEdit
Peaches and nectarines are best stored at temperatures of 0 °C (32 °F) and in high humidity.Template:Sfn They are highly perishable, so are typically consumed or canned within two weeks of harvest.
Peaches are climacteric fruits and continue to ripen after being picked from the tree. However, though climacteric fruits continue to ripen nutritional quality may not improve after picking with studies showing Vitamin C content to be higher in peaches when ripened on the tree.Template:Sfn Both ethylene and the plant hormone auxin are involved in regulating the ripening process.Template:Sfn Though the ethylene antagonist 1-Methylcyclopropene can be used to delay the ripening of peaches its use negatively affects the arroma of the fruit.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
InsectsEdit
The European earwig (Forficula auricularia) can be a minor to significant pest of the peach fruit, particularly when they are tightly clustered or have splits in the skin. The earwigs feed on the fruit and dirty them with waste.Template:Sfn
The larvae of many moth species are of concern to peach growers. Frequently noted are the peachtree borer (Synanthedon exitiosa),Template:Sfn the peach twig borer (Anarsia lineatella),Template:Sfn the yellow peach moth (Conogethes punctiferalis),Template:Sfn the fruit tree leafroller (Archips argyrospila),Template:Sfn oriental fruit moths (Grapholita molesta), and the lesser peachtree borer (Synanthedon pictipes).Template:Sfn
Other moths include the well-marked cutworm (Abagrotis orbis),Template:Sfn the climbing cutworm (Abagrotis barnesi),Template:Sfn Lyonetia prunifoliella,Template:Sfn the grey dagger (Acronicta psi),Template:Sfn ghost moth (Aenetus virescens),Template:Sfn the march moth (Alsophila aescularia),Template:Sfn fruit tree tortrix (Archips podanus),Template:Sfn cherry fruit moth (Argyresthia pruniella),Template:Sfn azalea leafminer Caloptilia zachrysa,Template:Sfn peach fruit moth (Carposina sasakii),Template:Sfn apple leaf skeletonizer (Choreutis pariana),Template:Sfn honeydew moth (Cryptoblabes gnidiella),Template:Sfn plum fruit moth (Cydia funebrana),Template:Sfn codling moth (Cydia pomonella),Template:Sfn figure of eight (Diloba caeruleocephala),Template:Sfn cherry bark tortrix (Enarmonia formosana),Template:Sfn apple leaf roller (Epiphyas postvittana),Template:Sfn brown-tail moth (Euproctis chrysorrhoea),Template:Sfn the fruit tree borer (Maroga melanostigma),Template:Sfn winter moth (Operophtera brumata),Template:Sfn fruit-tree tortrix (Pandemis heparana),Template:Sfn the wood groundling (Parachronistis albiceps),Template:Sfn apple leaf miner Phyllonorycter crataegella,Template:Sfn lesser bud moth (Recurvaria nanella),Template:Sfn and false codling moth (Thaumatotibia leucotreta).Template:Sfn
The tree is also a host plant for such species as the Japanese beetle (Popillia japonica), the shothole borer (Scolytus rugulosus), and plum curculio (Conotrachelus nenuphar).Template:Sfn
Green peach aphids (Myzus persicae) can be a significant problem on peach trees. They overwinter as eggs on the trees and feed upon them in the spring before moving to other host species during the summer.Template:Sfn Two scale insects can cause serious damage to peach trees, the white peach scale (Pseudaulacaspis pentagona) and the San Jose scale (Comstockaspis perniciosa).Template:Sfn
At best it is poor nectar and pollen source for honey bees, with the double flowering varieties particularly noted for not producing any usable resources for bees. Some fruiting cultivars also produce no pollen and nectar flow is often impacted by early frosts.Template:Sfn
Though not native to North America, peach trees have become a host for caterpillars of the Eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glacucus). Though they are not a significant pest.Template:Sfn
DiseasesEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}
Peach trees are prone to a disease called leaf curl, which usually does not directly affect the fruit, but does reduce the crop yield by partially defoliating the tree. Several fungicides can be used to combat the disease, including Bordeaux mixture and other copper-based products (the University of California considers these organic treatments), ziram, chlorothalonil, and dodine.Template:Sfn The fruit is susceptible to brown rot or a dark reddish spot.
CultivarsEdit
Hundreds of peach and nectarine cultivars are known. These are classified into two categories—freestones and clingstones. Freestones are those whose flesh separates readily from the pit. Clingstones are those whose flesh clings tightly to the pit. Some cultivars are partially freestone and clingstone, so are called semifree. Freestone types are preferred for eating fresh, while clingstone types are for canning. The fruit flesh may be creamy white to deep yellow, to dark red; the hue and shade of the color depend on the cultivar.Template:Sfn The genetic diversity of peach cultivars is highest in China with 495 recognized cultivars.Template:Sfn
Peach breeding has favored cultivars with more firmness, more red color, and shorter fuzz on the fruit surface. These characteristics ease shipping and supermarket sales by improving eye appeal. This selection process has not necessarily led to increased flavor, though. Peaches have a short shelf life, so commercial growers typically plant a mix of different cultivars to have fruit to ship all season long.Template:Sfn
NectarinesEdit
The cultivars commonly called nectarines have a smooth skin. It is on occasion referred to as a "shaved peach" or "fuzzless peach", due to its lack of fuzz or short hairs. Though fuzzy peaches and nectarines are regarded commercially as different fruits, with nectarines often erroneously believed to be a crossbreed between peaches and plums, or a "peach with a plum skin", nectarines belong to the same species as peaches. Several genetic studies have concluded nectarines are produced due to a recessive allele, whereas a fuzzy peach skin is dominant.Template:Sfn
As with peaches, nectarines can be white or yellow, and clingstone or freestone. On average, nectarines are slightly smaller and sweeter than peaches, but with much overlap.Template:Sfn The lack of skin fuzz can make nectarine skins appear more reddish than those of peaches, contributing to the fruit's plum-like appearance. The lack of down on nectarines' skin also means their skin is more easily bruised than peaches.
The history of the nectarine is unclear; the first recorded mention in English is from 1611,Template:Sfn but they had probably been grown much earlier within the native range of the peach in central and eastern Asia. A number of colonial-era newspaper articles make reference to nectarines being grown in the United States prior to the Revolutionary War. The 28 March 1768 edition of the New York Gazette (p. 3), for example, mentions a farm in Jamaica, Long Island, New York, where nectarines were grown. Later, cultivars of higher quality with better shipping qualities were introduced to the United States by David Fairchild of the Department of Agriculture in 1906.Template:Sfn
PeacherinesEdit
Peacherines are claimed to be a cross between a peach and a nectarine,Template:Sfn but as they are the same species cannot be a true cross (hybrid); they are sometimes marketed in Australia and New Zealand.Template:Sfn The linguist Louise Pound, in 1920, wrote that the term peacherine is an example of language stunt.Template:Sfn
Flat peachesEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Flat peaches, or pan-tao, have a flattened shape, in contrast to ordinary near-spherical peaches.Template:Sfn
OrnamentalsEdit
Peach trees are also grown for ornamental value in gardens, but trees specifically selected for this purpose have small, inedible fruits.Template:Sfn
| Peach (and nectarine) production in 2023 (millions of tonnes) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Template:CHN | 17.5 | |
| {{#invoke:flag | Spain}} | 1.4 |
| {{#invoke:flag | Turkey}} | 1.1 |
| {{#invoke:flag | Italy}} | 1.0 |
| Template:USA | 0.7 | |
| Template:IRN | 0.6 | |
| World | 27.1 | |
| Source: United Nations, FAOSTATTemplate:Sfn | ||
ProductionEdit
Template:See also In 2023, world production of peaches (combined with nectarines for reporting) was 27.1 million tonnes, led by China with 65% of the total. Spain, the next most productive country, only produced about 5% of the total (table). Peaches rank third in total production of temperate fruits after the apple and pear.Template:Sfn
The U.S. state of Georgia is known as the "Peach State" due to its significant production and shipping of peaches in the 1870s and 1880s,Template:Sfn with the first export of to New York occurring around 1853 and significant amounts being sold there by 1858.Template:Sfn In 2014, Georgia was third in US peach production behind California and South Carolina.Template:Sfn The largest peach producing countries in Latin America are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico.Template:Sfn
NutritionEdit
Raw peach flesh is 88% water, 10% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). A medium-sized raw peach, weighing Template:Convert, supplies 46 calories, and contains no micronutrients having a significant percentage of the Daily Value (DV, table). A raw nectarine has similar low content of nutrients.Template:Sfn The glycemic load of an average peach (120 grams) is 5, similar to other low-sugar fruits.Template:Sfn
PhytochemicalsEdit
Total polyphenols in mg per 100 g of fresh weight were 14–113 in white-flesh nectarines, 17–78 in yellow-flesh nectarines, 20–113 in white-flesh peaches, and 16–93 mg per 100 g in yellow-flesh peaches.Template:Sfn The major phenolic compounds identified in peach are chlorogenic acid, catechins and epicatechins,Template:Sfn with other compounds, identified by HPLC, including gallic acid and ellagic acid.Template:Sfn Rutin and isoquercetin are the primary flavonols found in clingstone peaches.Template:Sfn The levels of flavonols and cyanidins are highest in the skins. Though phenols vary by cultivar and due to the growing conditions in a growing season.Template:Sfn Red-fleshed peaches are rich in anthocyanins, especially red fleshed varieties and their skins.Template:Sfn malvin glycosides in clingstone peaches.Template:Sfn
As with many other members of the rose family, peach seeds contain cyanogenic glycosides, primarily amygdalin.Template:Sfn Amygdalin decomposes into a sugar molecule,hydrogen cyanide gas, and benzaldehyde. Hydrogen cyanide poisons the action of a critical enzyme for the use of oxygen in cells, resulting in death in severe cases.Template:Sfn While peach seeds are not the most toxic within the rose family (see bitter almond), large consumption of these chemicals from any source is potentially hazardous to animal and human health.Template:Sfn
Peach allergy or intolerance is a relatively common form of hypersensitivity to proteins contained in peaches and related fruits (such as almonds). Symptoms range from local effects (e.g. oral allergy syndrome, contact urticaria) to more severe systemic reactions, including anaphylaxis (e.g. urticaria, angioedema, gastrointestinal and respiratory symptoms).Template:Sfn Adverse reactions are related to the "freshness" of the fruit: peeled or canned fruit may be tolerated.Template:Sfn
Due to their close relatedness, the kernel of a peach stone tastes similar to almond, and peach stones are used to make a cheap version of marzipan, known as persipan.Template:Sfn
AromaEdit
The attractive smell of a ripe peach has 110 different volatile molecules combined, including alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, esters, polyphenols and terpenoids. The proportions vary significantly between different cultivars of peach.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
In cultureEdit
Peaches are not only a popular fruit, but also are symbolic in many cultural traditions, such as in art, paintings, and folk tales such as the Peaches of Immortality.
ChinaEdit
Peach blossoms are highly prized in Chinese culture. The ancient Chinese believed the peach to possess more vitality than any other tree because their blossoms appear before leaves sprout. When early rulers of China visited their territories, they were preceded by sorcerers armed with peach rods to protect them from spectral evils. On New Year's Eve, local magistrates would cut peach wood branches and place them over their doors to protect against evil influences.Template:Sfn Peach wood was also used for the earliest known door gods during the Han. Another author writes:
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The Chinese also considered peach wood (t'ao-fu)(Template:Lang-zh)
protective against evil spirits, who held the peach in awe. In ancient China, peach-wood bows were used to shoot arrows in every direction in an effort to dispel evil. Peach-wood slips or carved pits served as amulets to protect a person's life, safety, and health.Template:Sfn{{#if:|{{#if:|}}
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Peachwood seals or figurines guarded gates and doors, and, as one Han account recites, "the buildings in the capital are made tranquil and pure; everywhere a good state of affairs prevails".Template:Sfn Writes the author, further:
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Another aid in fighting evil spirits were peach-wood wands. The Li-chi (Han period) reported that the emperor went to the funeral of a minister escorted by a sorcerer carrying a peachwood wand to keep bad influences away. Since that time, peachwood wands have remained an important means of exorcism in China.Template:Sfn{{#if:|{{#if:|}}
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Similarly, peach trees would often be planted near the front door of a house to bring good fortune.Template:Sfn
Peach kernels, tao ren (Template:Lang-zh), are a common ingredient used in traditional Chinese medicine to dispel blood stasis and unblock bowels.Template:Sfn
In an orchard of flowering peach trees, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei took an oath of brotherhood in the opening chapter of the classic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Another peach orchard, in "The Peach Blossom Spring" by poet Tao Yuanming, is the setting of the favourite Chinese fable and a metaphor for utopias. A peach tree growing on a precipice was where the Taoist master Zhang Daoling tested his disciples.Template:Sfn
The deity Shòu Xīng (Template:Lang-zh), a god of longevity, is usually depicted with a very large forehead and holding a staff in his left hand and a large peach in his right hand due its associations with a long life.Template:Sfn A long-standing traditional birthday food for seniors is a symbolic longevity peach (shòutáo bao - 寿桃包), a type of lotus seed bun shaped like a peach, frequent in Taiwan and Cantonese culture.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
The term fēntáo (Template:Lang-zh), which is variously translated as "half-eaten peach", "divided peach", or "sharing a peach", was first used by Han Fei, a Legalist philosopher, in his work Han Feizi. From this story it became a byword for homosexuality.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The book records the incident when courtier Mizi Xia bit into an especially delicious peach and gave the remainder to his lover, Duke Ling of Wei, as a gift so that he could taste it, as well.Template:Sfn
KoreaEdit
As recorded by the traveller Isabella Bird in 1898, wands made of peach wood are used in parts of Korean shamanism. During the third part of an exorcism ritual for malevolent spirits a wand made of an eastern branch of a peach tree is used.Template:Sfn Originating from Daoism, the peach is one of ten symbols of longevity used in Korean art.Template:Sfn
An important piece of Korean art features the peach. Dream Journey to the Peach Blossom Land is the only existing signed and dated work by An Kyŏn. It depicts the imagined utopian Peach Blossom Land from a fable by the Chinese poet Tao Yuanming.Template:Sfn
JapanEdit
The world's sweetest peach is grown in Fukushima, Japan. The Guinness world record for the sweetest peach is currently held by a peach grown in Kanechika, Japan, with a sugar content of 22.2%. However, a fruit farm in rural Fukushima, Koji grew a much sweeter peach, with a Brix score of 32°. Degrees Brix measures the sugar content of the fruit, and is usually between 11 and 15 for a typical peach from a supermarket.Template:Sfn
Momotarō, whose name literally means "peach child", is a folktale character named after the giant peach from which he was birthed.Template:Sfn
Two traditional Japanese words for the color pink correspond to blossoming trees: one for peach blossoms (Template:Transliteration), and one for cherry blossoms ([[Cherry blossom#Symbolism in Japan|Template:Transliteration]]).
VietnamEdit
A Vietnamese mythic history states that in the spring of 1789, after marching to Ngọc Hồi and then winning a great victory against invaders from the Qing dynasty of China, Emperor Quang Trung ordered a messenger to gallop to Phú Xuân citadel (now Huế) and deliver a flowering peach branch to the Empress Ngọc Hân. This took place on the fifth day of the first lunar month, two days before the predicted end of the battle. The branch of peach flowers that was sent from the north to the centre of Vietnam was not only a message of victory from the Emperor to his consort, but also the start of a new spring of peace and happiness for all the Vietnamese people. In addition, since the land of Nhật Tân had freely given that very branch of peach flowers to the Emperor, it became the loyal garden of his dynasty.
The protagonists of The Tale of Kieu fell in love by a peach tree, and in Vietnam, the blossoming peach flower is the signal of spring. Finally, peach bonsai trees are used as decoration during Vietnamese New Year (Tết) in northern Vietnam.Template:Citation needed
EuropeEdit
Many famous artists have painted with peach fruits placed in prominence. Caravaggio, Vicenzo Campi, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, Severin Roesen, Peter Paul Rubens, and Van Gogh are among the many influential artists who painted peaches and peach trees in various settings.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Scholars suggest that many compositions are symbolic, some an effort to introduce realism.Template:Sfn For example, Tresidder claims the artists of Renaissance symbolically used peach to represent heart, and a leaf attached to the fruit as the symbol for tongue, thereby implying speaking truth from one's heart;Template:Sfn a ripe peach was also a symbol to imply a ripe state of good health. Caravaggio's paintings introduce realism by painting peach leaves that are molted, discolored, or in some cases have wormholes – conditions common in modern peach cultivation.Template:Sfn
In literature, Roald Dahl deciding on using a peach in his children's fantasy novel James and the Giant Peach after considering many other fruits including an apple, pear, or cherry. He thought the flavor and flesh of the peach to be more exciting.Template:Sfn
United StatesEdit
Despite it not being first or even second in peach production and the peach contributing far less than 1% of the state's agricultural production, the peach is strongly associated in American culture with the state of Georgia.Template:Sfn However, the peach did not officially become the official fruit of Georgia until 1995.Template:Sfn It has been proceeded by South Carolina, which named the peach its state fruit in 1984.Template:Sfn They were joined in giving the peach an official state status by Delaware naming it the state flower in 1995 and designating peach pie as its official dessert in 2009.Template:Sfn Alabama also named it the state tree fruit in 2006 in addition to the blackberry designated as the state fruit in 2004.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
The peach was marketed by the Georgia Fruit Exchange and later the Georgia Peach Grower's Association as being particularly tasty and special from the 1910s to the 1960s.Template:Sfn This also coincided with parts of Georgia wanting to distance itself from being, "the home of slavery and lynching and Confederate memorials," in the words of Frank Smith Horne.Template:Sfn The local movement to create a new county centred on Fort Valley to be named Peach County sponsored Peach Blossom Festivals from 1922 to 1926. They promoted a vision of a new progressive south that also ignored the black labor upon which the peach harvest, like that of cotton, depended.Template:Sfn Though the acreage of has declined to just one twelfth of its 1925 peak,Template:Sfn from 1935, Georgia has been nicknamed the "Peach State".Template:Sfn
GalleryEdit
- Pink Peach(Prunus persica) Blossom Over the Kathmandu City.jpg
Delicate pink peach blossoms bloom vibrantly against clear spring sky.
- Peachblossoms3800ppx.JPG
- Prunus persica（花桃）4035837.JPG
Peach blossoms
- Peach flowers.jpg
- Ruhland, Grenzstr. 3, Pfirsich-Strauch, Rinde, 01.jpg
Gray bark on trunk with lenticels
- Breskva Collins - zametnuti plodovi.jpg
Incipient fruit development
- Prunus persica coupe MHNT.jpg
- Specimens of peach wood.jpg
Color and grain of peach wood
- Prunus persica - Peach Hungary.jpg
- Prunus persica pit.jpg
- Starr-130504-4357-Prunus persica var persica-Florida Prince fruit on branch-Hawea Pl Olinda-Maui (24842890479).jpg
Peaches on tree
- Hillview Farms peaches in a basket.jpg
Peaches in a basket
PaintingsEdit
- Retrato de Isabella y John Stewart.jpg
Portrait of Isabella and John Stewart by Charles Willson Peale, 1774
- Still Life Basket of Peaches by Raphaelle Peale 1816.jpeg
Still Life Basket of Peaches by Raphaelle Peale, 1816
- Claude Monet - Das Pfirsichglas.jpg
A Jar of Peaches by Claude Monet Template:Circa
- Bairei kachō gafu, Spring 04, peach-blossoms and green pheasants.jpg
"Spring 4, peach-blossoms and green pheasants" by Kōno Bairei, 1883
- Pomological Watercolor POM00005183.jpg
Peach (cultivar 'Berry'), watercolour, 1895
ReferencesEdit
CitationsEdit
SourcesEdit
BooksEdit
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JournalsEdit
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News sourcesEdit
Web sourcesEdit
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Further readingEdit
- Okie, William Thomas. The Georgia Peach: Culture, Agriculture, and Environment in the American South (Cambridge Studies on the American South, 2016).
External linksEdit
Template:Commons category multi Template:Sister project
- Template:PFAF
- National Center for Home Food Preservation—Freezing Peaches
- Bioimages.vanderbilt.edu – Prunus persica images
- Clemson.edu: Everything About Peaches
Template:Peaches Template:US state flowers Template:Taxonbar Template:Authority control