Present situation of peach breeding programs: Post harvest and fruit quality assessment
Conference Paper
Overview
Research
Identity
Additional Document Info
Other
View All
Overview
abstract
Surveys, containing ten questions, sent via e-mail and fax, were filled by the technical personnel responsable for 29 peach breeding programs. Questions were designed to document the personnel and time expended, the number of seedlings evaluated, the varieties released, and how the post harvest and fruit quality traits are evaluated. Forty percent of the programs are located in USA, 28% in Europe, 28% in Latin America and 4% in Asia. On average, these programs have operated for 26 years and evaluate about 3,500 seedlings per year. The selection rate was 3.7 cultivars/10,000 seedlings. The programs have released 25 cultivars per year or, on average 0.88 cultivars/program. Ninety-three percent of the breeding programs considered fruit quality as one of the principal breeding objectives, followed by pest resistance (48.3%) and plant adaptation (37.9%). Post harvest is considered fifth on the priority list. Sixty-six percent of the breeding programs evaluate post harvest behavior of the seedlings or selections for an average of 14 days of storage. In terms of fruit quality, most of the breeding programs (62%) evaluated fruit quality exclusively by breeders and coworkers. Only a few programs (14%) considered trained panels to evaluate the eating quality of their selections objectively. A trained panel is a useful tool for assessing fruit quality, and could likely reflect consumer expectations, and consequently the new variety future market performance. Consequently, the first real test of consumer acceptability of the new varieties from most programs comes when the variety is commercially sold.
