Even when a grower harvests perfect peaches, the consumer still may not be biting into a tasty fruit at home, and postharvest practices may be partially to blame, said peach researcher Ioannis Minas, assistant professor of pomology at Colorado State University, at the 2018 Great Lakes Fruit, Vegetable and Farm Market Expo in December. Fortunately, he added, there’s a fairly simple solution.

He and his group looked at a typical postharvest peach scenario, in which growers immediately put harvested peaches in chilled storage, where the fruits remain for two to four weeks.

For June Gold peaches coming out of cold storage, they found considerable flesh bleeding, which is a visual sign of internal breakdown, and mealiness. All fruits picked when fully ripened (tree-ripe) showed both mealiness and flesh bleeding. Commercially harvested fruits (those picked two days earlier) fared better, with 40 percent experiencing mealiness, and 25 percent showing flesh bleeding. - Read more of this Good Fruit Grower article.

A juicy, tasty, fresh peach captures the essence of summer, and does it in a vibrant, fuzzy package. Unfortunately, U.S. consumers don’t always get that experience from their fruit. Instead, they sometimes bite into dry, mushy, mealy, discolored peaches, and it’s taking a toll on sales, said Ioannis Minas, assistant professor of pomology at Colorado State University.

In a talk at the Great Lakes Fruit, Vegetable and Farm Market Expo in December, Minas pointed to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics showing that consumption of fresh peaches declined by more than half in the past 25 years, dropping from nearly 7 pounds in 1980 to less than 3 in 2015. Minas and his colleagues hope to counter that trend by honing in on the characteristics of a great peach and using newer, nondestructive tools to identify the preharvest practices that foster those qualities. - Read more of this Good Fruit Grower article.