North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Douglas Woodard <dwoodard@becon.org>]

Apparently the Brazilian brown rot resistant peach was a standard type
of canning peach with the same rubbery flesh that the Babygold series
has. The Babygolds, from the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station 
in 1961, were bred for suitability for machanical processing and 
originally with a view to mechanical harvest, which latter I don't think 
worked out well.

I was told that when a rubbery-fleshed "canning clingstone" peach is 
crossed with a standard freestone fresh eating type, the first few 
generations tend to have poor flesh texture for any purpose. Given 
Vineland's chronic shortage of resources, breeding the brown rot 
resistance into the canning peaches was by far the highest priority. I 
have noticed that the Babygolds are quite prone to brown rot here and 
grower losses to this cause are usually appreciable and can be quite 
serious. I expect that being able to sharply reduce losses to brown rot 
would make a considerable difference to the profits of growers of 
canning peaches here.

I doubt very much that there was any linkage between flesh texture and
brown rot resistance in the Brazilian peach.

As to information, I think the mention in Pomona was in the late 1980s
or early 1990s. If the index covers those years likely you could find it
by that means, although I am not sure that it would contain much more
than the abstracts referenced below. I expect that articles discussing
it would be in something like HortScience and in either
Horticultural Abstracts or Plant Breeding Abstracts or both. The latter
you might have to go to your state research station's library to find.

I would be surprised if there had not been interest in the Brazilian
peach among canning peach breeders in the U.S. southeast - if there are
any there now. Perhaps the growing of canning peaches in the U.S. is now
concentrated in California.

There are some articles (papers in symposium proceedings) with abstracts
readable on the internet:

ISHS (International Society for Horticultural Science) Acta 
Horticulturae 465 April 1998)
IV International Peach Symposium
Breeding for brown rot (Monilinia fructicola) resistance in clingstone
peach with emphasis on the role of fruit phenolics
http;//www.actahort.org/books/465/465_18.htm

also
Assaying brown rot susceptibility in peach cultivars and progeny
http://www.actahort.org/books/465/465_90.htm
It appears that Glohaven is somewhat resistant in after-harvest tests.

for the index to papers see
http://actahort.org/books/465/index.htm

There is another paper mentioning this resistant Brazilian peach
"Bolinha" which is said to be of low quality:

ISHS Acta Horticulturae 622  August 2003
XXVI International Horticultural Congress: Genetics and Breeding of Tree
Fruits and Nuts
Resistance to brown rot disease in peach is determined by multiple
structural and biochemical components
http://www.actahort.org/books/622/622_34.htm

for the index see
http://www.actahort.org/books/622/index.htm

I noticed an obituary of one of the California researchers involved at
http://apsnet.org/foundation/awards/ogawa.asp

These symposium volumes might be available by inter-library loan.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


Anton Callaway wrote:
> Resistance to brown rot in peaches is very interesting.  I'd love to hear 
> more details about this Brazilian peach and the mechanism of resistance.  For 
> instance, is the rubbery flesh a coincidental phenotype or is it part of the 
> resistance mechanism?  Does this resistance hold up even when curculio 
> control is less than complete?
[snip]

> Anton
> Zone 8