How are new varieties of peaches, plums and nectarines developed?
New peach, plum and nectarine varieties are created by cross-breeding existing varieties. To do so, a blossom on one tree is fertilized with the pollen of another tree. The fruit then grows from that blossom, and when it matures, it’s evaluated. Promising fruits have their seeds planted to see if they will grow successfully and produce fruit with the characteristics that were positively evaluated the first time. Wood from the potential variety is grafted to rootstocks to evaluate how it grows that way as well. If the variety is promising in those trials, growing well and producing good fruit, it is evaluated over a few years to determine if it continues to do so. If the variety is successful after several years of evaluation, it could eventually be released as a new variety. The process of developing a new variety this way can take from 5 to 10 years. Only a handful of the thousands of crosses fruit breeders make each year will reach the stage of being released as new varieties, and fe
