Peach Essay

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Introduction
Peach is a decideous tree,native to North-West China. The peach has a botanical name of Prunus persica, it belongs to the family Rosaceae(Bassi and Monet 2008:5). Peach has straight and smooth trunk with somewhat reddish to greenish bark in its first year of growth with later becoming dark grey silver (Bassi and Monet 2008:5).This would be a small tree but can reach 8m if not pruned ,the leaves are lanceolate but the size will depend on tree vigor (Danick and Paull ,2008:719) .It explained that this tree species has two flower buds flanking a slender vegetative bud (Danick and Paull ,2008:720). 2
.This scientifically name originate from the school of thought that perceived peach to be from Persia its believed this view was first published by Linne in 1758(Bassi and Monet,2008:1).
1.2Inflorescence and flowers
Peach tree has a narrow lanced-shaped, initially folded lengthways. The flowers of this fruit is deep pale pink, occationally white. They appear just before the leaves, on short stalks. In peach trees their own, in almost trees they are in pears.

Uses of peach
The peach tree which is decideous(shed its leaves in winter) is probably one of the best known fruit tree throughout the country. Peach producers cater to three markets namely fresh-market where fruits are directly consumed, canning market these is about one of the largest markets in the world with regards to peach and processing market (Okie, 2008:3). In 2010 we exported11550 tons a ton being R14 084 our market being Europe and western Asia. We import 1077 tons while processing 97 320tons in 2010(DAFF, 2011).The peach is rich in vitamin A,C and a good source of energy and minerals (USDA,2002).
Farmers are free to sell their peaches as they prefer at m...

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...ts present. Some cultivars such as early dawn, inkooos, oomsarel and Boland are harvested early from November or December onwards. Other cultivars such as elberta and kakamas ripen as late as February.
(P.J.C Kuun)Peaches should be fully ripen but still firm if they are meant for the local markets and or for export the peaches must be picked when still slighly green although they must be sweet and well-colourd. Peaches are never pulled off the tree, they must be twisted off so that the skin is not torn by the stalk.
The harvesters place the peaches and transferred to strong picking boxes. The picking boxes are taken to the picking shed in trucks or wagon with pneumatic (air-filled) tires so that they are not damaged by pumping. In the packing shed, the peaches that are too small, too green too ripen, diseases are then sorted into sized and are sent to be packed.

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