1) Peach breeding aims to develop varieties with better fruit quality, long shelf life, resistance to pests and diseases, and tolerance to high temperatures. Approaches include introduction, selection, hybridization, and mutation breeding. 2) Important breeding objectives are reducing chilling requirements, developing dwarf varieties suitable for high-density planting, and increasing resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. 3) Future work includes utilizing genetic resources from related species and incorporating molecular marker technologies to efficiently transfer important traits into new varieties.

1. PeachBreeding
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Presented by:-
Rajatiya Jignasa H.
M. Sc. (Horti.) Fruit Science
JAU, Junagadh.

2. Introduction
• Peach and nectarine are important summer fruit crops of the world.
• China, Italy, USA, Spain and Greece are the major producers of
peach and nectarines in the world.
• Peach is a temperate fruit and probably the most adapted temperate
fruit to warmer climate.
• Most of the peach cultivars require 500 to 1000 or more chilling
hours below 7.2˚ C for normal bloom and fruiting.
• In India, varieties which need more cold for breaking dormancy are
cultivated in the hills of Jammu and Kashmir, HP and Uttaranchal.
The varieties which need sub-tropical climate are grown in Punjab,
Haryana, Parts of UP and north-eastern states.
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3. Scientificclassification
B.N. : Prunus persica
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Rosales
Family: Rosaceae
Genus: Prunus
Subgenus: Amygdalus
Species: P. persica
Chromosome no.: 2n=16
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4. Originand distribution
• China is the centre of origin for several peaches. There are many
wild forms of peach found in Himachal Pradesh, India.
• One wild peach locally known as Kateru or Katakiaru is very
late ripening. At some locations the fruit matures in October
(Kartika month of the Indian calendar) and probably that is
why they are called kataki aru.
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5. Species
1) Prunus persica : It is a diploid spp. (2n=18). Most commercial
species of peach grown in India.
2) Prunus persica (L.) Batsch var. nucipersica (Nectarine): A
natural mutant of peach, nectarine originated in China around
2000 years ago. It is a hairless or fuzzless peach which has
smooth skin like plum but, the trees do not differ from peach.
3) Prunus persica (L.) Batsch var. Platycarpa (Saucer Peach or
Flat Peach): the fruit of flat peach is flattened and thicker than
the stone length having a calyx-like eye or broken cavity at
apex. The saucer shape of flat peaches makes it more convenient
to eat.
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6. 4) Prunus davidiana (Father David’s Peach): It is originated in
North East China. It is drought tolerant hence, use das a
rootstock; however, it is sensitive to nematodes.
5) Prunus kansuensis Rehd.: A wild species found in north
eastern China and generally used as a seedling rootstock.
Fruits are astringent and very poor in quality.
6) Prunus mira Poit & Turpin: It is considered to be a natural
hybrid of almond and peach. The species is found
extensively in the dry temperate zones of India. Locally known
as Behmi and used as rootstock for peach, almond and plum.
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7. Prunus persica Flat peach Nectarine
Prunus davidiana Prunus kansuensis Prunus mira
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8. Cultivars
Pratap Florada prince Nectar
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9. Red haven Sun haven Shan-e-Punjab
Independence J H Hale Sugar baby
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10. Cytogenetic
• The chromosome number of peach is 2n=16 (X=8).
• Haploid peaches have been obtained from seedling
populations.
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11. Geneticresource
• The most extensive collection of peach germplasm have been
assembled in china. In 1980, china established three national
peach repositories in Nanjing, Zhengzhou and Beijing. These
repositories currently has a collection of 560, 280 and 650 peach
accessions respectively.
• In India, 52 accessions of peach germplasm is being maintained
at regional research station of NBPGR at Shimla.
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12. blossombiology
• Chilling requirement: 500-800 hrs.
• Flowers bear on one year old shoots which are reddish-green
and turn dark grey silver when old.
• Generally, on a fruiting shoot, each node bears three buds. Two
lateral flower buds and one vegetative bud in the middle.
• Peach flower is hermaphrodite, perigynous, pale to dark pink
in colour (white to dark red flowers are also found), five sepals
and five petals arranged alternately.
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13. The petals are separated and there are two shapes of
corolla:
•Showy (rose shaped) with large petals(anther hidden until the petal
separate)
•Non-showy (bell shaped) with smaller petals, the anthers protrude
beyond the corolla. They can shed pollen even before complete
anthesis.
A B
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14. • The flower has 30 stamens or more. Pistil become receptive 1 or 2
days after anthesis and remains receptive for several days.
• The pistil has two ovules however, usually only one develops into
seed.
• The flowering starts in the first week of February and continues till
end of February.
• Peaches are pollinated through insects. The pollen of peach is
highly viable.
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15. Breedingsystems
• Normally all commercial peach cultivars are self fertile
means self pollination is their.
• Only a few cultivars are self sterile, including J.H.Hale,
Marsun, June Elberta, Halberta, Candoka and Gaint in
which cross pollination is compulsory for fruit setting.
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16. Breedingobjectives
• To develop variety having better fruit quality and long shelf life.
• Extending the maturity period.
• Reduction in tree vigour to aid in mechanization.
• To develop variety having resistance to insect pest and diseases.
• To develop variety having tolerance to high summer temperature.
• Development of low chilling cultivars.
• For processing peaches, firmness of flesh, freedom from loose
fibre, attractive colour and non-browning of flesh are the
important characters to be improved.
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17. Ideotypes
• Early flowering and regular bearer
• Chilling requirement is less for planting in sub-tropical region
• Dwarf and compact plant for HDP planting
• Plant resistance to spring frost and high summer temperature
• Resistant to major pests and diseases
• Self fruitful or fruit set less depended on pollinizer
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18. Problemsinbreeding
• Germplasm exchange has become very difficult due to
patenting of new peach varieties.
• Only one seed per fruit necessitates performing large number
of crosses to have a sizable population.
• The replant problems and nematode do not allow breeders to
use same land again for growing the progenies.
• In low chill peaches, embryo rescue is to be done and poor ex
vitro survival is a problem.
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19. Approachesforcropimprovement
1. Introduction
Flordasun, TA-170 (Pratap) and 16-33 (Shan-e-Punjab) are
introduced from USA during late sixties at PAU, Ludhiana and
have been release for commercial cultivation in India.
2. Selection
A large number of low chilling peach varieties, e.g. Sun Red,
Sun Gold and some other selections.
Clonal selection
Sharbati is a chance seedling selection selected at Saharanpur.
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20. 3. Hybridization
• Redhar is a cross between ‘Halehaven’ and ‘Kalhaven bred’ at
USA.
• Domesticated peach can be readily hybridized with native
populations of native P. persica and all the wild species of peach.
• Successful hybrids have also been produced between peach and
almond, apricot, plum and sour cherry. In most cases, these wide
hybrids are largely sterile.
• Although F1s of almond and peach can highly fertile and can be
employed as rootstocks for both.
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21. • Nemagard, a hybrid between P. persica x P. davididasa is a widely
used root-knot nematode resistant rootstock, which is immune to
Meloidogyne incognita.
• Planned hybridization work on peach was started in 1957 at
Saharanpur, India. Peach Saharanpur Prabhat (Sharbati x
Flordasun) was released.
4. Mutation
Two varieties have been released through gamma irradiation
‘Magnof 135’ (1968) for fruit size and ‘Plovdiv 6’ (1981) for better
yield.
Bud-sports
Early ripening mutant from ‘Redhaven’ have been identified are
‘Garnet Beauty’ and ‘Stark EaliGlo’.
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22. Futurethrustinimprovement
• Utilization of genetic resources for identification,
characterization and manipulation of important traits controlling
genes in the other species.
• Utilization of gene information and marker systems for
manipulation of important characters in the breeding scheme.
• Research on gene systems responsible for endodormancy, cold
hardiness, chilling requirements for flower bud break and
growth habit.
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