The ‘Donut’ peaches will be ripe soon. Here you can see this year’s crop behind the netting that protects it from birds and other local thieves (we really do need orchard cops here!).
‘Donut’–also known as ‘Stark Saturn’*–is one of several flat peaches. There is hardly any flesh between the stem and blossom end, so it is easy to cut the pit out and then you really do have a donut! (I will try to remember to perform this little bit of surgery and post a photo here once we have some ripe fruit.)
Like almost every other stone fruit this year, these are later to ripen than usual. We had a late winter.
‘Donut’ has white flesh and a very delicate texture. The flavor has a pleasant bitterness that some say is somewhat almond-like. It would rate pretty high on my list of favorite peaches.
We have two other flat peaches: ‘Sweet Bagel’ (yellow fleshed) and a mystery variety that was labeled by the nursery as ‘Silver Lode’ nectarine, but produced a flat peach (pictured below from last year) that was clearly neither ‘Donut’ nor ‘Sweet Bagel.’ No other flat peach varieties appear in any of my source books, so it really is a mystery.
* Not to be confused with the fruiting-flowering variety simply known as ‘Saturn,’ which is not a flat peach. I have seen them confused in nursery catalogs, so buyer beware!
…an example of the previously referenced ‘Donut’ peach, both before and after surgery…
Scion grafted by Fruits and Votes » Blog Archive » The donut and the donut hole — 30 July 2006 @ 11:57
There’s also ‘UFO’, from Wayne Sherman’s program at the University of Florida.
It’s an interesting trait, and it’s a little surprising that it’s still something novel, considering that A) it’s a dominant trait and thus fairly easy to breed for, and B) the germplasm has been in the country for more than a century and in fact the original ‘Peento’ peach was the source of many of the genes for low chilling requirement in today’s peaches.
Seed planted by Evil Fruit Lord — 08 August 2006 @ 21:23
I suppose the flat trait was just not considered an advantage till recently, when someone got the idea to market the concept. Given that it is a dominant trait, I suspect we will be seeing more of these varieties in the future.
I was not aware of ‘Peento’ being a source of low-chill genes. Very interesting.
Seed planted by MSS — 09 August 2006 @ 14:41
Now that I think of it, the down side of the flat trait is that I think is that they are prone to splitting, because of the uneven expansion of the flesh. So there’s the added complication of breeding against that sort of thing.
There are only a couple of major sources of low chill genes in peach…I can’t recall the others.
Seed planted by Evil Fruit Lord — 09 August 2006 @ 19:13
‘Okinawa’ and ‘Hawaiian’ are the other major sources.
Seed planted by Evil Fruit Lord — 09 August 2006 @ 19:17
Yes, ‘Donut’ peaches are very prone to splitting. They often open up at the part where there is little flesh, and then ants and other insects get in there. This year, only two or three out of maybe ten or so on the tree (which is only about 6 feet tall) had this problem. Last year, almost all of them split.
There is still one peach on the tree, quite hard (and not, thus far, splitting), more than two weeks after the rest were harvested.
I don’t recall splitting of the ‘Sweet Bagel’ or the “mystery” flat peaches, but then these trees have not been very productive, thus far, so it is hard to say what their tendencies might be.
As for ‘Okinawa’ and ‘Hawaiian’ (low-chill gene sources), I have not heard of them.
Seed planted by MSS — 10 August 2006 @ 08:35
Yeah, I don’t really know much about ‘Okinawa’ and ‘Hawaiian’. I’ve never seen them, but I think may be small South China types.
Seed planted by Evil Fruit Lord — 12 August 2006 @ 20:10
Late bloomers
Scion grafted by Fruits and Votes — 18 May 2007 @ 19:53