Hey, I’m Desmond Layne, Peach Specialist at Clemson University. Welcome to the Clemson Tiger Peach Network.
Welcome back to “Everything About Peaches”. Today is September 2, 2011 and we’re here at my variety test block at James Cooley’s farm in Chesnee, South Carolina. Last time, we featured Big Red which and this time we’re featuring SC82035-13-48. You might say, what is that?! Well, we test things that are called “advanced selections” and when we test them for a whole bunch of years and in different places and they turn out to be really good, they get a name. We’re going to call this one “CaroTiger”.
You know, when somebody is blessed with a new baby, everybody wants to see a picture. Well, today you’re getting a picture of our new baby here at Clemson, CaroTiger! We’ve been testing this particular selection at multiple locations for several years. Its performance has been excellent. The initial cross was done by David Cain. It was initially selected by Bill Newall and we’ve been looking at it now for all these years and we think wow, we’ve got a winner here! For the late season, towards the end of August, about the same timeframe as Big Red. It’s a good one!
You might wonder how we came up with the name CaroTiger. Well, over the last several years, there have been releases from Clemson. There’s been Caroking, Carored, Carogem. So this goes along in that same series of names … Caro … being Carolina or South Carolina and Tiger because the Clemson Tiger is our University mascot. If you look at the surface of the skin, you’ve got this yellow background color and you’ve got the red overcolor or blush. It kind of looks like a tiger! So, it’s a really attractive peach. When you cut through the skin into the flesh, you can see — I’ll just get it open here — look at that beautiful yellow flesh! It’s a yellow fleshed, melting flesh, freestone. Occasionally, there may be some red pigmentation around the pit. Its no problem. Those are anthocyanin pigments which are antioxidants which is a health benefit for you. As you have probably observed for most of the late-season cultivars — that is characteristic of them.
If you remember last time, we tasted Big Red. It was Big. It was juicy and boy it was good! Well, lets see what CaroTiger tastes like. Man, that is so good, it makes you want to ROAR! Sweet, juicy, tangy. That’s what you’re looking for in a Clemson peach!
Why don’t you join us next week when we’ll feature our next “Peach Pick for South Carolina”. Mmmmm. You know, being a peach specialist is a rough job. We’ve got like 18 weeks of peaches here in this “Tastier Peach State” and we’re not even done yet!
To get my latest information on peaches, you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/PeachDoctor. For more educational videos and information about peaches, you can visit my “Everything About Peaches” website at www.clemson.edu/peach. And if you would like to read my columns for the American Fruit Grower magazine, you can visit their website at www.growingproduce.com
