July 21 will be just ‘peachy’ during field day at Clemson

Published: July 12, 2011

CLEMSON — Hints of honey and coconut, melon and maple syrup, sweet and tart will tease the tongues as growers taste the new varieties of peaches being reviewed at the Clemson University Extension Service Peach Field Day from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. July 21 at the Madren Conference Center. Lunch is included in the $25 per person registration fee.

Peach and nectarine growers from South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina will meet to sample dozens of peaches developed by peach breeders and tested for reliability of cropping, size, shape, sugar content and firmness by Clemson peach specialist Desmond Layne and his evaluation team. 

“Hopefully, we'll look at and taste as many as 30 to 40 advanced selections and cultivars,” said Layne, associate professor of pomology and Extension fruit specialist who is state horticulture program team leader.

“People should be excited about peaches because South Carolina is the No. 2 peach producer in the United States; more than Georgia,” said Layne. “It’s our signature summer fruit crop. Peaches represent a $60 million-a-year industry that employs more than a thousand people.”

The goal of the field day is to help growers see that there’s a tremendous variety of peach types that can be grown in South Carolina, Layne said. There are about 350 different varieties of peaches at the university’s Musser Fruit Research Farm in Seneca.

“We have peaches from New Jersey, Georgia, North Carolina, California, Michigan — even France — and growers can look and see how these actually perform here in South Carolina," said Layne. "We look at them for several years to see how reliably they perform and then we make recommendations so that growers can choose the best cultivars for their particular operation." 

The field day previously was held at the Musser farm in Seneca, but this year growers will gather indoors for presentations on research and a look at Layne’s innovative media productions geared toward the public and growers, including many popular YouTube videos.

“We have a new website called Everything About Peaches,” said Layne. “You can find it at www.clemson.edu/peach. We have information for the commercial grower, for the backyard peach grower, and just for anybody who wants information about peaches: recipes, how to can them, how to pick ripe ones.” 

To register for the Peach Field Day, go to http://www.regonline.com/2011peachfieldday.

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