Zest Peaches and Smooth Texan Nectarines: New Medium Chill Stone Fruit Cultivars

In the late 1990s, the Prunus Breeding and Genetics Program at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX, began to develop a series of early ripening, yellow peach and nectarine cultivars adapted to the medium chill zone (500–600 CU) of the southern United States. This work has resulted in five new peach and three new nectarine cultivars. The new peach cultivars ripen consecutively from mid May to late June in the medium chill zone of Texas. These Zest peach cultivars have similar size but better color, fruit shape and firmness as compared to ‘June Gold’. All the 'Royal Zest' releases resulted from crosses made between adapted breeding materials and a high colored California cultivar. ‘Golden Zest’ is derived from a cross between a Californian and a Brazilian peach cultivar. The Smooth Texan nectarine cultivars ripen starting about two weeks before and finish a little after ‘June Gold’ in the medium chill zone of Texas. ‘Smooth Texan One’ and ‘Smooth Texan Two’ share ‘Crimson Baby’ as a mother but have different pollen parents whereas ‘Smooth Texan Three’ is a cross between the California nectarine ‘Diamond Ray’ and the Chinese nectarine ‘Danmo’.