The Clemson University peach breeding program develops high quality peach cultivars adapted to South Carolina environment by addressing key challenges such as climate changes, consumer demands and producer needs. The program is combining disease resistance to bacterial spot and brown rot with large fruit of excellent quality by searching for variability, finding new sources of desired traits, and understanding how these traits are inherited.
Traditional breeding approaches are combined with marker-assisted parental and seedling selection to provide efficient way of incorporating desired characters into newly developed peach cultivars that address industry needs and consumer expectations. The South Carolina peach industry is the second largest producer of fresh market peaches in the United States, after California, with more than 7,000 ha under the peach production annually valued >$80M.
Most of the cultivars grown in the Southeastern US are developed in breeding programs that differ in environmental conditions, emphasizing the need for new improved cultivars suited for our conditions. Since the programs’ establishment in 2008 more than 450 crosses have been performed resulting in over 40,000 hybrids planted and evaluated in field. Less than ~2% of initial hybrid seedlings are selected and moved to the advanced selection level, and about 10 were clonally propagated and planted in 7 replicated trials across southeast.
After 16 years of breeding, we are now approaching an exciting time in which our own selections with high quality fruit resistant to bacterial spot are released.