Abstract
Understanding the growing process and fruit size differences among peach cultivars is extremely important in the technological domain of the crop and can provide information to improve the proper crop management (thinning and harvesting seasons) and the crop breeding of fruits with a larger caliber. However, this information is still incipient in subtropical regions and requires further research, especially in Brazil. The aim of this study was to determine the influence of temperature on the growing of four peach cultivars (Tropical, Aurora-2, Ouro Mel-4, and Biuti) under subtropical conditions of field cultivation. Fruit development was determined every two weeks throughout the cycle with 30 fruits from previously identified branches from six different plants of each cultivar. Regarding the thermal accumulation in growing degree-days (GDD), the cultivar ‘Tropical’ showed the lowest agronomic fruit properties (size and mass) and required a lower GDD accumulation during the development stages of the fruits, whereas the cultivar ‘Biuti’ showed higher thermal requirements and higher agronomic properties. The number of cells had greater influence on the final fruit size than the cell area.
Highlights
Peach (Prunus persica (L.) Batsch) is the third most economically important fruit crop in temperate zones and are one of the model species of Rosaceae [1]
Yamaguchi [10] reported a significant correlation between cell length and fruit size in a large number of peach cultivars, cell number was the most stable indicator of size. These results suggest that cell size may be an important genetic component contributing to fruit size
The temperature greatly influenced the development of peach fruits and each genotype shows a determined thermal requirement to complete the reproductive cycle
Summary
Peach (Prunus persica (L.) Batsch) is the third most economically important fruit crop in temperate zones and are one of the model species of Rosaceae [1]. Brazil is the 14th largest world producer of peaches. In 2013, 217,706 tones were produced in an area of 18,091 hectares, corresponding to a productivity of 12.03 t h−1 [2]. Large fruit size is an essential characteristic for commercial peach cultivars. Fruit size is a function of genotype and environment [3]. The major factor affecting fruit size is genotype, within
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