CTAHR Explores a Peach of a New Crop

Mango doesn’t grow well in all of Hawai‘i’s microclimates and isn’t available year-round. Like mango, peaches are a flavorful, fleshy stone fruit good fresh or baked, but peaches require a period of period of cold weather to blossom that is hard to come by in Hawai‘i.

Assistant Extension Agent Alton Arakaki learned of low-chill peach varieties sold by Burchell Nursery in California, which introduced him to horticulturist David Byrne of Texas A&M. Byrne develops peach varieties that have low chill hours requirements for commercial operations where winters are mild. Already testing varieties in Mexico and Thailand, he and the nursery were happy to provide trees to Arakaki in exchange for data on their performance in Hawai‘i.

Arakaki, who is based on Moloka‘i, invited fellow extension agents in neighboring counties to be part of his peach team. His goal was to test the trees in a temperature range from hot, dry Waianae and Ho‘olehua to high, cool Kula and Kamuela. The result is trials of four publicly available low chill varieties—Tropic Prince, Tropic Beauty, Tropic Sweet, and Tropic Snow—and some experimental cultivars at 50 sites on six islands.

Peaches entirely alien to Hawai‘i. An earlier “Hawaiian” variety was described by the USDA Handbook of Peaches and Nectarines as “poor quality, unattractive, low yielding,” but it provided the low-chill genetics used extensively in early low-chill breeding work. CTAHR evaluated those varieties on upper elevation experiment stations during the 1960s, but fruit flies limited limit commercial viability. CTAHR’s work on fruit fly management strategies and the new high-quality low-chill varieties address those issues.

Still, introducing a new tree crop involves a substantial investment of time, capital, and acreage. It’s an economic gamble commercial orchards are hesitant to take. “The college can take some risk trying new things, such as discovering the behavior of a plant with deciduous characteristic in tropical conditions, so it will be more predictable for farmers,” Arakaki says.

He optimistic. “The trees on Moloka‘i and Kamuela fruited well this year,” he says, indicating potential for wide climatic fruiting range. “They’re still young, but the fruit has full bodied peach flavor.” Word has leaked out, and area chefs are already asking how they can get Hawai‘i grown peaches to incorporate into their menus.

The college has provided supplemental project funding to continue documentation and help determine if this year’s fruiting was an anomaly or a predictable genetic and scientific achievement that growers can bank on.

—From CTAHR in Focus, January 2014