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The peach ( Prunus persica) is a deciduous tree that bears edible juicy with various characteristics. Most are simply called peaches, while the glossy-skinned, non-fuzzy varieties are called nectarines. Though from the same species, they are regarded commercially as different fruits.
The tree is regarded as handsome and is planted in gardens for its springtime blooms in addition to fruit production. It is relatively short lived, usually not exceeding twenty years of age. Peaches were first domesticated and Agriculture in China during the Neolithic period. The specific name persica refers to its widespread cultivation in Persia (modern-day Iran), from where it was transplanted to Europe. It belongs to the genus Prunus, which also includes the cherry, apricot, almond, and plum, and which is part of the Rosaceae.
The peach is very popular; only the apple and pear have higher production amounts for temperate fruits. In 2023, China produced 65% of the world total of peaches and nectarines. Other leading countries, such as Spain, Turkey, Italy, the U.S., and Iran lag far behind China, with none producing more than 5% of the world total. The fruit is regarded as a symbol of longevity in several East Asian cultures.
Unlike , the size of peach trees is not generally controlled by dwarfing in commercial orchards. A great variety of growth habits have been selected including fastigiate, dwarf, spreading, and Weeping tree. In order to have a single trunk, trees must pruned and likewise the branches have a tendancy to droop over time and must be trained to allow for access under the tree.
The bark on the trunk and branches is dark gray with horizontal . It becomes more scaly and rough as the tree becomes older. Twigs on peach trees have a smooth, hairless surface, the bark is usually red, but may be green on the sides not exposed to the sun. As they become older, branchlets weather to become gray in color. Twigs have true at their ends.
Peach leaves are oblong leaf to lanceolate, having sides nearly parallel until tapering at end and base or shaped like the head of a spear. The widest portion of the leaf is midway or further towards the leaf tip. Each leaf folds along the central rib of the leaf and is often also curved, usually long and wide, though occasionally they may be shorter. The surface of the leaves is smooth and hairless, but the leaf stem sometimes has glands. The edges of the leaves have serrated edges with blunt teeth. The teeth have a reddish-brown gland at the tip. Leaves are attached to the twigs by petioles, leaf stems. They are strong and measure 1 to 2 cm. They can also have one or more extrafloral nectaries.
The bloom period is in the early spring, often cut short by frosts, in February, March, April, or May depending on location. In New Zealand and the southern hemisphere, blooming occurs in August to October.
The flesh of the peach is quite variable in color from greenish-white to white to yellow to dark red. The texture can also differ from soft to stone hard.
The growth of the fruit is a double-sigmoid growth curve: a beginning quick period of development followed by a resting period of little growth, and then a second period of rapid maturation.
The seed of the peach is much larger and less round than the seeds of its closest fruit relatives. Unlike the pit of an almond, which is only pitted, the peach pit has a stony exterior which is both pitted and deeply furrowed.
Prunus persica is classified in Prunus with other within the rose family, Rosaceae. The further classification into a subgenus or section is disputed. The work of Alfred Rehder, published in 1940, has been widely used to group the species of Prunus. Rehder based his system largely on that of Bernhard Adalbert Emil Koehne with the peach placed with the almond in subgenus Amygdalus because similarities in the rough and pitted stone. However, since 2000 studies of nuclear and chloroplast DNA have shown that the five subgenera accepted by Rehder are not more closely related to each other than to other species in Prunus. In 2013 Shuo Shi and collaborators published research where they proposed it be part of subgenus Prunus together with the plums and cherries, but in a section named Persicae, now corrected to Persica. However, these groupings are not yet widely accepted.
The greatest genetic diversity in peaches is found in China, where it is generally agreed to have been domesticated. The species is often thought to be a cultigen, a taxa that has its origins in cultivation rather than as a wild species.
The closest relatives of the peach are the Chinese bush peach ( Prunus kansuensis), Chinese wild peach ( Prunus davidiana), the smooth stone peach ( Prunus mira). Though Charles Darwin speculated that the peach might be a marvelous modification of the almond ( Prunus amygdalus), research into the divergence of peach relatives shows this not to be the case. Quite the opposite the almond, while in the same genus, is confirmed to be a more distant relative.
In April 2010, an international consortium, the International Peach Genome Initiative, which includes researchers from the United States, Italy, Chile, Spain, and France, announced they had Sequencing the peach tree genome (doubled haploid Lovell). In 2013 they published the peach genome sequence and related analyses. The sequence is composed of 227 million nucleotides arranged in eight pseudomolecules representing the eight peach chromosomes (2n = 16). In addition, 27,852 protein-coding genes and 28,689 protein-coding transcripts were predicted.
Particular emphasis in this study is reserved for the analysis of the genetic diversity in peach germplasm and how it was shaped by human activities such as domestication and breeding. Major historical bottlenecks were found, one related to the putative original domestication that is supposed to have taken place in China about 4,000–5,000 years ago, the second is related to the western germplasm and is due to the early dissemination of the peach in Europe from China and the more recent breeding activities in the United States and Europe. These bottlenecks highlighted the substantial reduction of genetic diversity associated with domestication and breeding activities.
Though not a separate grouping genetically, nectarines are regarded as different fruits commercially. The difference is the lack of fuzz, the , on the skin of the fruits. Research into the cause of this trait found the transcription factor gene PpeMYB25 regulates the formation of trichomes on peach fruits. A mutation can cause a loss of function resulting in the changed fruit type.
The modern English word – and its in many European languages such as the German Pfirsich and Finnish persikka – also have Latin origins. In ancient Rome the peach was called persicum malum or simply persicum meaning . This became the Late Latin pessica and in turn the medieval pesca. In Old French it was variously the peche, pesche, or peske. The first usage in England was as the surname Pecche in about 1184–1185. The French word was directly adopted into English to mean the fruit and spelled either pechis or peches around the year 1400. In 1605 the first known instance of the modern spelling of peach was published. Peach trees are also, less frequently, called common peaches.
The various cultivars of peach with smooth-skinned fruits are called nectarines. This word was coined by English speakers, originally as an adjective meaning , from nectar and the suffix -ine, with the first use in print in 1611.
In Europe the peach trees are partly naturalized. In western Europe they are found in Portugal, Spain, France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. In central Europe they are reported as escaped from cultivation in Germany, Hungary, and Switzerland and in Corsica, Sardinia, Italy, Cyprus, and Greece in the south. In the southeast they grow as introduced plants in Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria. To the east they are found in parts of European Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea.
They also have escaped from cultivation in the African nations of Libya, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, and the Cape Verde Islands off the northeast coast. Specific areas of South Africa include the biogeographic areas of the Northern Provinces, Orange Free State, and KwaZulu-Natal.
In North America, in addition to cultivation, peach saplings are often found growing anywhere pits have been discarded. Most of these feral trees are short lived, but some have established naturalized populations. Such escapes are reported in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Nova Scotia. Trees outside of cultivation have been found in all of the United States east of the Mississippi excluding Minnesota, Vermont, and New Hampshire. In the northwest they are found in Oregon and Idaho. In the Southwestern United States they are to some extent naturalized from California to Texas, with the exception of in Nevada. Similar occurrences are also found in the northwest of Mexico and El Salvador in Central America.
In South America escapees are only reported from Ecuador and the northeast of Argentina.
In Australia it is naturalized in the states of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia. In New Zealand it can be found as an escapee from cultivation on both the North Island and south Island, especially around Auckland, Christchurch, and in the Otago region. It is also naturalized on many oceanic islands including the Mariana Islands, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Réunion, and Saint Helena.
A domesticated peach appeared very early in Japan, in 4700–4400 BCE, during the Jōmon period. It was already similar to modern cultivated forms, where the peach stones are significantly larger and more compressed than earlier stones. This domesticated type of peach was brought into Japan from China. Nevertheless, in China itself, this variety is currently attested only at a later date around 3300 to 2300 BCE.
In India, the peach first appeared sometime between 2500 and 1700 BCE, during the Harappan period in the Kashmir.
It is also found elsewhere in West Asia in ancient times. Peach cultivation reached Greece by 300 BCE. Alexander the Great is sometimes said to have introduced them into Greece after conquering Persia, but no historical evidence for this claim has been found. Peaches were, however, well known to the Romans in the first century CE; the oldest known artistic representations of the fruit are in two fragments of wall paintings, dated to the first century CE, in Herculaneum, preserved due to the Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE, and now held in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. Archaeological finds show that peaches were cultivated widely in Roman northwestern Continental Europe, but production collapsed around the sixth century; some revival of production followed with the Carolingian Renaissance of the ninth century.
An article on peach tree cultivation in Spain is brought down in Ibn al-'Awwam's 12th-century agricultural work, Book on Agriculture. The peach was brought to the Americas by Spanish explorers in the 16th century, and eventually made it to England and France in the 17th century, where it was a prized and expensive treat. Although Thomas Jefferson had peach trees at Monticello, American farmers did not begin commercial production until the 19th century in Maryland, Delaware, Georgia, South Carolina, and finally Virginia.
The Shanghai honey nectar peach was a key component of both the food culture and agrarian economy the area where the modern megacity of Shanghai stands. Peaches were the cornerstone of early Shanghai's garden culture. As modernization and westernization swept through the city the Shanghai honey nectar peach nearly disappeared completely. Much of modern Shanghai is built over these gardens and peach orchards.
The first European botanist to argue that the peach did not originate in Persia was Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1855. He argued on the basis of it not being mentioned by Xenophon in 401 BCE or by other early sources that it could not have arrived there much before it was imported to Rome in the 100s BCE. An important western botanist to argue for a Chinese origin of the species was Ulysses Prentiss Hedrick in 1917. Chinese literature records the fruit for at least 1,000 years before its appearance in Europe.
In the United States the peach was soon adopted as a crop by American Indians. In the eastern U.S. the peach also became naturalized and abundant as a feral species. Peaches were being grown in Virginia as early as 1629. Peaches grown by Indians in Virginia were said to have been "of greater variety and finer sorts" than those of the English colonists. Also in 1629, peaches were listed as a crop in New Mexico. William Penn noted the existence of wild peaches in Pennsylvania in 1683. In fact, peaches may have already spread to the American Southeast by the early to mid 1600s, actively cultivated by indigenous communities such as the Muscogee before permanent Spanish settlement of the region.
Peach plantations became an objective of American military campaigns against the Indians. In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition destroyed the livelihood of many of the Iroquois people of New York. Among the crops destroyed were plantations of peach trees. In 1864, Kit Carson led a successful U.S. army expedition to Canyon de Chelly in Arizona to destroy the livelihood of the Navajo. Carson destroyed thousands of peach trees. A soldier said they were the "best peach trees I have ever seen in the country, every one of them bearing fruit." The Navajo signed a treaty with the US government in 1868 and were able to return to the canyon. They had saved peach pits and some trees resprouted from stumps and so by the 1870s and 1880s many peach orchards had been restored.
The trees themselves can usually tolerate temperatures to around , although the following season's flower buds are usually killed at these temperatures, preventing a crop that summer. Flower bud death begins to occur between , depending on the cultivar and on the timing of the cold, with the buds becoming less cold tolerant in late winter. Another climate constraint is spring frost. The trees flower fairly early and the blossom is damaged or killed if temperatures drop below about . If the flowers are not fully open, though, they can tolerate a few degrees colder. The flowers are also vulnerable to temperatures higher than during the day.
Climates with significant winter rainfall at temperatures below are also unsuitable for peach cultivation, as the rain promotes leaf curl, which is the most serious fungal disease for peaches. In practice, fungicides are extensively used for peach cultivation in such climates, with more than 1% of European peaches exceeding legal pesticide limits in 2013.
Finally, summer heat is required to mature the crop, with mean temperatures of the hottest month between .
Peach trees are grown in well draining soils as they are vulnerable to disease in wet soils. They are most productive in approximately with a sandy loam character.
Most peach trees sold by nurseries are cultivars Shield budding or grafted onto a suitable rootstock. Common rootstocks are 'Lovell Peach', 'Nemaguard Peach', Prunus besseyi, and 'Citation'. The rootstock provides hardiness and budding is done to improve predictability of the fruit quality.
Typical peach cultivars begin bearing fruit in their third year. Their lifespan in the U.S. varies by region; the University of California at Davis gives a lifespan of about 15 years while the University of Maine gives a lifespan of 7 years there.
Peach trees need full sun, and a layout that allows good natural air flow to assist the thermal environment for the tree. Peaches are planted in early winter. During the growth season, they need a regular and reliable supply of water, with higher amounts just before harvest.
Peaches need nitrogen-rich fertilizers more than other fruit trees. Without regular fertilizer supply, peach tree leaves start turning yellow or exhibit stunted growth. Blood meal, bone meal, and calcium ammonium nitrate are suitable fertilizers.
The flowers on a peach tree are typically thinned out because if the full number of peaches mature on a branch, they are undersized and lack flavor. Fruits are thinned midway in the season by commercial growers. Fresh peaches are easily bruised, so do not store well. They are most flavorful when they ripen on the tree and are eaten the day of harvest.
The peach tree can be grown in an espalier shape. The Baldassari palmette is a design created around 1950 used primarily for training peaches. In constructed from stone or brick, which absorb and retain solar heat and then slowly release it, raising the temperature against the wall, peaches can be grown as espaliers against south-facing walls as far north as southeast Great Britain and southern Ireland.
Peaches are climacteric fruits and continue to ripen after being picked from the tree. However, though climacteric fruits continue to ripen nutritional quality may not improve after picking with studies showing Vitamin C content to be higher in peaches when ripened on the tree. Both ethylene and the plant hormone auxin are involved in regulating the ripening process. Though the ethylene antagonist 1-Methylcyclopropene can be used to delay the ripening of peaches its use negatively affects the arroma of the fruit.
The larvae of many moth species are of concern to peach growers. Frequently noted are the peachtree borer ( Synanthedon exitiosa), the peach twig borer ( Anarsia lineatella), the yellow peach moth ( Conogethes punctiferalis), the fruit tree leafroller ( Archips argyrospila), oriental fruit moths ( Grapholita molesta), and the lesser peachtree borer ( Synanthedon pictipes).
Other moths include the well-marked cutworm ( Abagrotis orbis), the climbing cutworm ( Abagrotis barnesi), Lyonetia prunifoliella, the grey dagger ( Acronicta psi), ghost moth ( Aenetus virescens), the march moth ( Alsophila aescularia), fruit tree tortrix ( Archips podanus), cherry fruit moth ( Argyresthia pruniella), azalea leafminer Caloptilia zachrysa, peach fruit moth ( Carposina sasakii), apple leaf skeletonizer ( Choreutis pariana), honeydew moth ( Cryptoblabes gnidiella), plum fruit moth ( Cydia funebrana), codling moth ( Cydia pomonella), figure of eight ( Diloba caeruleocephala), cherry bark tortrix ( Enarmonia formosana), apple leaf roller ( Epiphyas postvittana), brown-tail moth ( Euproctis chrysorrhoea), the fruit tree borer ( Maroga melanostigma), winter moth ( Operophtera brumata), fruit-tree tortrix ( Pandemis heparana), the wood groundling ( Parachronistis albiceps), apple leaf miner Phyllonorycter crataegella, lesser bud moth ( Recurvaria nanella), and false codling moth ( Thaumatotibia leucotreta).
The tree is also a host plant for such species as the Japanese beetle ( Popillia japonica), the shothole borer ( Scolytus rugulosus), and plum curculio ( Conotrachelus nenuphar).
Green peach aphids ( Myzus persicae) can be a significant problem on peach trees. They overwinter as eggs on the trees and feed upon them in the spring before moving to other host species during the summer. Two scale insects can cause serious damage to peach trees, the white peach scale ( Pseudaulacaspis pentagona) and the San Jose scale ( Comstockaspis perniciosa).
At best it is poor nectar and pollen source for honey bees, with the double flowering varieties particularly noted for not producing any usable resources for bees. Some fruiting cultivars also produce no pollen and nectar flow is often impacted by early frosts.
Though not native to North America, peach trees have become a host for caterpillars of the Eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly ( Papilio glacucus). Though they are not a significant pest.
Peach breeding has favored cultivars with more firmness, more red color, and shorter fuzz on the fruit surface. These characteristics ease shipping and supermarket sales by improving eye appeal. This selection process has not necessarily led to increased flavor, though. Peaches have a short shelf life, so commercial growers typically plant a mix of different cultivars to have fruit to ship all season long.
As with peaches, nectarines can be white or yellow, and clingstone or freestone. On average, nectarines are slightly smaller and sweeter than peaches, but with much overlap. The lack of skin fuzz can make nectarine skins appear more reddish than those of peaches, contributing to the fruit's plum-like appearance.
The history of the nectarine is unclear; the first recorded mention in English is from 1611, but they had probably been grown much earlier within the native range of the peach in central and eastern Asia. A number of colonial-era newspaper articles make reference to nectarines being grown in the United States prior to the Revolutionary War. The 28 March 1768 edition of the New York Gazette (p. 3), for example, mentions a farm in Jamaica, Long Island, New York, where nectarines were grown. Later, cultivars of higher quality with better shipping qualities were introduced to the United States by David Fairchild of the Department of Agriculture in 1906.
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| Source: United Nations, FAOSTAT | |
The U.S. state of Georgia is known as the "Peach State" due to its significant production and shipping of peaches in the 1870s and 1880s, with the first export to New York occurring around 1853 and significant amounts being sold there by 1858. In 2014, Georgia was third in US peach production behind California and South Carolina. The largest peach producing countries in Latin America are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico.
Sucrose accounts for 57% of the sweetness of a raw peach, with glucose and fructose accounting for the remainder of sugars (table). The glycemic load of an average peach (120 grams) is 5, similar to other low-sugar fruits.
A raw nectarine has a similar low nutrient content.
As with many other members of the rose family, peach seeds contain cyanogenic glycosides, primarily amygdalin. Amygdalin decomposes into a sugar molecule,hydrogen cyanide gas, and benzaldehyde. Hydrogen cyanide poisons the action of a critical enzyme for the use of oxygen in cells, resulting in death in severe cases. While peach seeds are not the most toxic within the rose family (see bitter almond), large consumption of these chemicals from any source is potentially hazardous to animal and human health.
Peach food allergy or food intolerance is a relatively common form of hypersensitivity to contained in peaches and related fruits (such as ). Symptoms range from local effects (e.g. oral allergy syndrome, contact urticaria) to more severe systemic reactions, including anaphylaxis (e.g. urticaria, angioedema, gastrointestinal and respiratory symptoms). Adverse reactions are related to the "freshness" of the fruit: peeled or canned fruit may be tolerated.
Due to their close relatedness, the kernel of a peach stone tastes similar to almond, and peach stones are used to make a cheap version of marzipan, known as persipan.
Peachwood seals or figurines guarded gates and doors, and, as one Han account recites, "the buildings in the capital are made tranquil and pure; everywhere a good state of affairs prevails". Writes the author, further:
Similarly, peach trees would often be planted near the front door of a house to bring good fortune.
Peach kernels, tao ren (links=no), are a common ingredient used in traditional Chinese medicine to dispel blood stasis and unblock bowels.
In an orchard of flowering peach trees, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei took an oath of brotherhood in the opening chapter of the classic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Another peach orchard, in "The Peach Blossom Spring" by poet Tao Yuanming, is the setting of the favourite Chinese fable and a metaphor for utopias. A peach tree growing on a precipice was where the Taoist master Zhang Daoling tested his disciples.
The deity Shòu Xīng (links=no), a god of longevity, is usually depicted with a very large forehead and holding a staff in his left hand and a large peach in his right hand due its associations with a long life. A long-standing traditional birthday food for seniors is a symbolic longevity peach (shòutáo bao - 寿桃包), a type of lotus seed bun shaped like a peach, frequent in Taiwan and Cantonese culture.
The term fēntáo (links=no), which is variously translated as "half-eaten peach", "divided peach", or "sharing a peach", was first used by Han Fei, a Legalist philosopher, in his work Han Feizi. From this story it became a byword for homosexuality. The book records the incident when courtier Mizi Xia bit into an especially delicious peach and gave the remainder to his lover, Duke Ling of Wei, as a gift so that he could taste it, as well.
An important piece of Korean art features the peach. Dream Journey to the Peach Blossom Land is the only existing signed and dated work by An Kyŏn. It depicts the imagined utopian Peach Blossom Land from a fable by the Chinese poet Tao Yuanming.
Momotarō, whose name literally means "peach child", is a folktale character named after the giant peach from which he was birthed.
Two traditional Japanese words for the color pink correspond to blossoming trees: one for peach blossoms (), and one for cherry blossoms ().
The protagonists of The Tale of Kieu fell in love by a peach tree, and in Vietnam, the blossoming peach flower is the signal of spring. Finally, peach bonsai trees are used as decoration during Vietnamese New Year (Tết) in northern Vietnam.
In literature, Roald Dahl deciding on using a peach in his children's fantasy novel James and the Giant Peach after considering many other fruits including an apple, pear, or cherry. He thought the flavor and flesh of the peach to be more exciting.
The peach was marketed by the Georgia Fruit Exchange and later the Georgia Peach Grower's Association as being particularly tasty and special from the 1910s to the 1960s. This also coincided with parts of Georgia wanting to distance itself from being, "the home of slavery and lynching and Confederate memorials," in the words of Frank Smith Horne. The local movement to create a new county centred on Fort Valley to be named Peach County sponsored Peach Blossom Festivals from 1922 to 1926. They promoted a vision of a new progressive south that also ignored the black labor upon which the peach harvest, like that of cotton, depended. Though the acreage of has declined to just one twelfth of its 1925 peak, from 1935, Georgia has been nicknamed the "Peach State".
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