Effects of harvest date and fruit position along the tree canopy on peach fruit quality

This study was carried out on a white-fleshed peach cultivar (Prunus persica L. Batsch cv. ‘Alba’) and a yellow fleshed peach cultivar (Prunus persica L. Batsch cv. ‘Fire Prince’). Tree canopy was divided into three horizontal layers (lower, mid, upper layer) and the fruits from each layer were separately harvested. Three harvests were performed at 7-day intervals. Fruit diameter, fresh weight, cover color, firmness and soluble solid content were determined. A discriminant analysis procedure was applied to experimental data and extracted five discriminant functions for each cultivar. Fruit qualitative differences among canopy layers changed throughout the on-tree-ripening process and were less evident on second and third harvest date for Fire Prince and Alba peach cultivars, respectively. Fruit discriminant scores well summarized fruit quality. In addition our results suggest that lower canopy layer plays an important role in the production of fruits of good quality like the other two canopy layers.