North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

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From: ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>
Reply-To: ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 07:59:09 -0400
To: ARS News subscriber <lonrom@hevanet.com>
Subject: Banking on Plums and Peaches

STORY LEAD:
World's Peaches, Plums Preserved in Unique Collection
___________________________________________

ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Marcia Wood, (301) 504-1662, MarciaWood@ars.usda.gov
April 26, 2004
___________________________________________

Exotic peaches and plums from around the globe are safeguarded in
greenhouses and orchards at America's official collection of these
fruits. Known formally as the ARS National Clonal Germplasm Repository
for Fruit and Nut Crops, it is a living treasury of both common and
uncommon peaches and plums.

>From the repository's offices, laboratories and greenhouses at Davis,
Calif., it's only a short drive to the research orchards at Winters,
where about 750 peach trees and about 700 plums flourish.

Most of the peaches are varieties of Prunus persica, such as the
historically important "Shanghai" and "J.H. Hale," two varieties that
are in the parentage of nearly all of today's U.S.-grown peaches.

Other distinctive peaches include a white-fleshed cling peach from
Korea named "Yumyeong," and the red-fleshed "Sanguine de Tardiff " from
France.

Predominant in the plum collection are the European plum, Prunus
domestica, produced as a fresh fruit or dried into prunes; and the
Japanese plum, P. salicina, typically sold in this country as a dessert
plum. 

Among the most unusual: the squat, green-apple-flavored P. simonii from
Asia; Europe's P. spinosa, of sloe gin fame; and the North American P.
hortulana, a stately ornamental tree. Also distinctive: South Africa's
"Laetitia," a P. salicina variety that bears large fruit, and "Sans
Noay," a pit-free French P. domestica plum commonly dried into prunes.

>From spring through fall, plant breeders inspect the collection to
choose varieties they can incorporate into their own fruit-breeding
programs. Researchers who are studying the genetic makeup of the world's
plums use leaf samples from the repository to extract DNA for their
research. ARS scientists at the repository conduct analyses of plum DNA
as well, to be sure all the plums in the collection are correctly
identified and catalogued.

Read more about the research in the April 2004 issue of Agricultural
Research magazine, available online at:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/apr04/fruit0404.htm

ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research
agency.
___________________________________________

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