North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Dennis Norton" <dmnorton@royaloakfarmorchard.com>]

The redness in color is produced by the sun striking the peach.  The more direct sunlight, the redder the peach.  Peaches protected by leaves will not redden as quickly.  We have found some on our trees to have perfect leaf patterns in yellow while all around the leaf pattern  is red.  The newer varieties have bred into them the ability to get redder faster to satisfy public perception just as Chris says.  But much of the color is controlled by the openness of the scaffolds on open center trees.  We have trained our new trees(3 years old) to central leader and they have more leaf cover.  The red color is not as bold as the open center peaches, yet they ripen at about the same time. 

 

Dennis Norton
Royal Oak Farm Orchard
http://www.royaloakfarmorchard.com

----- Original Message -----

From: mauch1@aol.com

To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 12:29 PM

Subject: [NAFEX] grocery store peaches and nectarines

 > That means at
the first sign of that yellowish/red tint, they are ready to pick to be
shipped.

 

I think this is part of the problem in that since the public associates 'redness' with

'ripeness' all the newest peaches and nectarines are being selected for being redder

and redder.  So I think the peaches/nectarines are being picked even earlier than

they used to as they are now 'probably' redder sooner.

 

Years ago, on one of our local news stations, they used to have a segment with

"Joe Garagiola (I know I murdered the spelling here), the green grocer".  He was

a retired fruit stand owner who gave produce advice.  He once said that if you

looked at a peach and the redness extended to where it met the stem, the peach

could be home ripened (I won't say to near the equivalent of tree ripened, but it

would at least be edible rather than going from green to rotten).  I believe

this was true -- for older varieties.  I think the newer varieties are so red, that

you can't use this criteria anymore.

 

Chris Mauchline
SE PA, zone 6
40° 5' N 75° 51'W
~650 ft elevation