Agronomical performance under Mediterranean climatic conditions among peach [Prunus persica L. (Batsch)] cultivars originated from different breeding programmes

Nowadays more than 70 active peach breeding programmes are developed around the world, all of them, regardless of country, with their specific objectives. Nevertheless, there is no currently available information comparing different peach cultivars based in their origin in terms of agronomic performance and fruit quality under Mediterranean climatic conditions. For this reason, we evaluated the influence of fruit type, origin (continent and breeding programme) and cultivar on adaptability, production and susceptibility to powdery mildew. A study was carried out on 112 cultivars at the IRTA-Experimental Station of Lleida (Spain) during the 2009 and 2011 seasons in which melting peach cultivars presented better agronomical performance than nectarine, nonmelting peach and flat peach cultivars. Comparing continents, USA versus Europe, in terms of fruit type, melting peach and nectarine cultivars from Europe were best adapted to Mediterranean conditions. According to origin by fruit type, melting peach cultivars from Monteaux-Caillet, ASF, Zaiger and A. Minguzzi showed the best agronomical performance. In the case of nectarine, the ASF, PSB and Bradford breeding programmes provided the most interesting cultivars. The fact that there are only a few breeding programmes for flat peaches makes them all the more interesting to producers. In most of the traits studied important variability among cultivars was recorded, either within the same breeding programme. In spite of these results, the cultivars in each breeding programme were clearly different; this explains why producers tend to adopt the strategy of choosing cultivars from different breeding programmes.

► Agronomical performance was better in melting peach cultivars than the others fruit types.
► Melting peach and nectarine cultivars from Europe were better adapted than the USA cultivars.
► Monteaux-Caillet, ASF, Zaiger and Minguzzi showed the best performance in the case of melting peach.
► In nectarine the best results were for ASF, PSB and Bradford.
► In most of the traits studied important variability among cultivars was recorded.