High spring temperatures decrease peach fruit size

Abstract

O ver the past few decades, models of peach fruit growth and plant development have identified useful principles for assisting growers in making horticultural management decisions. For example, harvest-date prediction models are now available to aid in managing fruit crops (Ben Mimoun and DeJong 1999). The unusually early harvest of California's peach crop in 2004 -which had record high temperatures during bloom time -and attendant difficulties in attaining the fruit sizes desired by the market (DeJong 2005) have increased interest in using physiological concepts to understand the effects of early-spring temperature on peach fruit growth and in anticipating fruit size at harvest.The dependence of peach fruit development on spring temperatures during the first 30 days after bloom has been established; there is a strong correlation between the sum of growing degreehours accumulated in the 30 days after bloom (GDH 30 ) and the number of days between bloom and harvest for several stone-fruit cultivars (Ben Mimoun and DeJong 1999).Traditionally, the California clingstone peach industry has used reference-date fruit size (the size of fruit at the date of pit-tip hardening, plus 10 days) to predict what the fruit size potential will be for a given year, and then peach growers conduct fruit-thinning accordingly. Reference-date fruit sizes are known to vary from year to year, but the reasons for this variation were previously unclear. Lopez and DeJong (2007) compared a 20-year clingstone-peach data set collected and archived by the California Canning Peach Association, which included full bloom date (FBD), reference date (RD) and fruit size (FS) at reference date from different locations in California.When the data -collected from orchards near the Central Valley cities of Kingsburg, Modesto and Yuba City -was correlated with seasonal weather data available through the California Irrigation Management Information System (CIMIS), a strong correlation was found between accumulated GDH 30 and the number of days between full bloom date and

The Influence of Climate on Fruit Development and Quality of Four Low-chill Peach Cultivars

“…They reported a 2-to 6-d reduction in FDP for every 1°C increase in mean temperature, depending on the cultivar. Lopez et al (2007) found a similar decrease in the number of days from full bloom to reference date in canning and fresh market peaches with an increase in the growing degree hours during the 30-d after full bloom.…”

The influence of chilling requirement on the southern distribution limit of exotic Russian olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia) in western North America

“…Thus, delayed (Morin et al 2009) rather than earlier (Myneni et al 1997;Parmesan and Yohe 2003) vegetative bud-break is likely to occur in the south under warming scenarios. Delayed bud-break has been found to hinder flower development in other temperate tree species (Prentice and Helmisaair 1991), which, in turn, can lead to decreased fruit quality (Lopez 2007), fruit set (Rattigan and Hill 1986;Rakngan et al 1996) and fruit ripening (Morin et al 2008). Additionally, delayed bud-break could delay fruit set and seed dispersal.…”

A bottom-up model to describe consumers’ preferences towards late season peaches

“…In USA, pricing has favoured large-size fruit (Lopez et al, 2007). Hence, the PDO Calanda norm, which stipulates a minimum peach size is advisable for a better market performance.…”