[NAFEX] grocery store peaches and nectarines

Dennis Norton dmnorton at royaloakfarmorchard.com
Mon Jan 23 03:06:36 EST 2006


Being a peach grower with about 1,000 trees, we do things a little 
differently than the commercial growers.  Peaches grown and shipped 
commercially to the grocery stores are picked at first color.  That means at 
the first sign of that yellowish/red tint, they are ready to pick to be 
shipped.  They are not picked at the right stage to have any flavor, but the 
poor folks that have only purchased peaches at the grocery store don't know 
any better.  To get the best flavor for peaches, they should be picked when 
"firm ripe".   "Firm ripe" means they are not soft yet, but not too hard 
either.  The color should have a good red tint to it, but not too much red. 
They should be "cooled down" at 68 degrees for 24 hours.  Then they should 
be stored at 34 degrees while waiting to be sold.  Can anyone imagine a 
commercial grower doing this?  Since we grow only for our own market, this 
is how we handle our peaches.  We have never been able to meet the demand 
for our peaches and have always had to supplement.  We purchase our 
supplements from Eckert's Orchards in Bellville, IL who grow their peaches 
the same as we do and pick them at the same time.  Our shipments arrive on 
Friday morning, having been picked on Thursday.  We store them at 34 degrees 
and they last us for a good 7 days.  We always sell out just when that next 
shipment arrives and have never had a complaint about tasteless peaches. 
And we still have a problem meeting demand!  It's a good problem to have.

By the way, 34 degrees is the optimum temperature for storage of peaches and 
apples as well as scion wood.  When our new trees arrive to be planted, we 
keep them at 34 until they go into the ground, which is within 36 hours. 
Apples and peaches stored at 36 degrees will start to break down much faster 
than at 34 and at 40 won't last at all.  40 degrees is the temperature at 
which bacteria will start to develop and any good health department would 
shut anyone down if their refrigerator that held any food being served to 
the public was at 40 degrees or above.  If I can locate an article from 
Fruit Growers News about the latest storage tests done on peaches I will 
post it that covers this exact subject.

Dennis Norton
Royal Oak Farm Orchard
http://www.royaloakfarmorchard.com
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Dave Griffin
  To: North American Fruit Explorers
  Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2006 11:01 PM
  Subject: Re: [NAFEX] grocery store peaches and nectarines


  I have always blamed the poor taste and texture of store peaches and 
nectarines on early picking as well, but it may be worse than just that one 
commercial consideration that accounts for this. Last summer I was able to 
tour a test orchard for new and not so recent but modern commercial 
cultivars and participated in the evaluation of about 20 ripe varieties 
which we picked off the tree. It wasn't long before I began to notice that 
what we were tasting were all very similar to each other and also very much 
like what I had tasted from the grocery store. Let me repeat, we were 
picking these right off the trees. The only time I tasted anything that was 
beginning to be sweet and juicy was when I wandered off to trees that had 
most of their fruit on the ground and then, when I would remark that this 
one was pretty good, I was told not to pay any attention to it as it was 
past. I left the station very disappointed in what I had exp ected to be a 
magnificent day of indulgent peach pleasure, but with my eyes opened to the 
painful truth: it is the large, beautiful, firm, red commercial peaches that 
are bad, not when they pick them. Stopping at a friend's place on the way 
home I had the best peach of the day, by far. His neighbor had a seedling 
tree that came from a Reliance pit and the fruit was much like it - small, 
yellow, fuzzy, sweet, juicy, with amazing flavor and aroma, and so soft you 
couldn't have shipped it across the street. But then why would you have 
wanted to?

  Dave
  MN, zone 4a


    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Ginda Fisher
    To: North American Fruit Explorers
    Sent: 1/22/06 10:21:57 PM
    Subject: [NAFEX] grocery store peaches and nectarines




    On Jan 22, 2006, at 10:37 PM, road's end farm wrote:
      On Jan 22, 2006, at 8:46 PM, Spidra Webster wrote:
        For the last several years I've found that store nectarines are a
        better bet than peaches.  But the last season or so nectarines have
        seemed just as bad.  I hardly got a good peach this summer but I 
think
        it might be due to the fact that I wasn't getting out to the 
Farmer's
        Market or gourmet stores enough.


      Grocery store peaches are almost always terrible as they're almost 
always picked too green. If you wait till they're close enough to ripe so 
that they'll develop full flavor, they're too close to ripe to ship very 
far.


      Many many years ago I did a brief stint picking peaches in Washington 
State, while wandering around the country. We were told that we might as 
well eat the ripe ones, they couldn't be shipped anyway. A revelation. 
Probably one reason I'm farming today.


      --Rivka
      Finger Lakes NY; zone 5


    All in all, I usually prefer grocery store peaches to grocery store 
nectarines.  But it's a crap shoot.  The best "peach" I ever had was a 
nectarine several years ago, and this year we got a batch of terrific 
nectarines.  We also got some really excellent peaches form the local 
produce place, though.  Even the locally grown ones vary a lot.  they were 
only excellent for a week and a half, both earlier and later they were just 
so-so.  I'm sure the local farmers grow more than one type, and I'd guess 
that only one cultivar was both an excellent cultivar and also arrived ripe 
in the store.


    Ginda
    eastern Mass., zone 6 
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