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Georgia fruit growers embodied the intelligent, business-minded mentality about which New South boosters preached. Rather than stubbornly adding to the already glutted cotton markets, these modern farmers diversified. In supplying urban markets with fruit and truck, growers drew the attention of northern capital southward. Queen Peach and her cousins would supplant King Cotton and bring prosperity to the prostrate South. Yet it was with the New South’s critics that many growers allied themselves in the 1890s. Despite epitomizing scientific agriculture and virtuous industry, Georgia growers asserted the near impossibility of squeezing prof­its from fruit. Railroads, they argued, hindered the promised progress and liberation through extortionate freight rates. Consequently, growers became leaders of Georgia’s Populist revolt. Their story challenges notions of Populism as backward-looking while revealing the inef­fi­ciencies, failures, and precarities of corporate capitalism exemplified by southern railroads. Moreover, it demonstrates the Populists’ distinct threat to the rising corporate order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Potential host plants for the larvae of plum curculio, Conotrachelus nenuphar (Herbst) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), in central Georgia's peach producing region were surveyed. This fruit-attacking curculionid is reported to have a broad host range, including many plants in the Rosaceae and other families. However, our collections indicated that in this region plum curculio largely is limited to peach (Prunus persica) and plum (P. angustifolia and P. umbellata). Abandoned peach orchards and wild plum thickets are important hosts for the spring generation of plum curculio and are sources of subsequent infestations of managed peach orchards. However, only abandoned peach orchards were available to the summer generation of plum curculio. May haw, Crataegus aestivalis, was also a host, but other species of Crataegus were not used. Although the plum curculio was reported to be a significant pest of blueberries (Vaccinium spp.) in North Carolina, New Jersey, and Delaware, they were only rarely used as a host in central Georgia. Apple (Malus domestica) and Asian pear (Pyrus pyrifolia), when available, were ovipositional hosts of plum curculio in central Georgia; however, no larvae emerged from these hosts. We report the first records of plum curculio developing in Vaccinium stamineum and Vitis rotundifolia. Our results are compared with a previous survey conducted in the northeastern United States, as well as to data reported in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant-based polyphenolics have been reported to bestow health benefits when consumed, which are partially ascribed to their antioxidant activity. Yet, many current in vitro chemical assays to characterize antioxidant potential do not truly reflect the physiological properties of food antioxidants in vivo. The present study employed biological approaches, including a cellular antioxidant activity (CAA) and protein glycation assays, to offer an improved picture of antioxidant potential of phenolic extracts from Georgia peach cultivars. The phenolic extracts from two peach varieties, showing contrasting antioxidant capacities according to hydrophilic-oxygen radical absorbance capacity (H-ORAC FL ) and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays, exhibited significant differences in two biological tests when the assays were performed on a fresh weight basis. The procyanidins fraction displayed notable antioxidant capacity, when compared to other phenolic classes in the peach extract, in these two biologically relevant assays., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Insufficient winter chill accumulation can detrimentally impact agriculture. Understanding the changing risk of insufficient chill accumulation can guide orchard management and cultivar selection for long-lived perennial crops including peaches. This study quantifies the influence of modeled anthropogenic climate change on observed chill accumulation since 1981 and projected chill accumulation through the mid-21st century, with a focus on principal peach-growing regions in the southeastern United States, and commonly grown peach cultivars with low, moderate, and high chill accumulation requirements. Anthropogenic climate change has reduced winter chill accumulation, increased the probability of winters with low chill accumulation, and increased the likelihood of winters with insufficient chill for commonly grown peach cultivars in the southeastern United States. Climate projections show a continuation of reduced chill accumulation and increased probability of winters with insufficient chill accumulation for cultivars with high chill requirements, with approximately 40% of years by mid-century having insufficient chill in Georgia. The results highlight the importance of inter-annual variability in agro-climate risk assessments and suggest that adaptive measures may be necessary in order to maintain current peach production practices in the region in the coming decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acetonic crude phenolic extracts of six Georgia peach cultivars were prepared and separated into low- and high-molecular-weight (LMW and HMW) fractions by Sephadex LH-20 column chromatography. Further characterization via RP-HPLC-ESI-MS identified the main phenolics as hydroxycinnamates, (+)-catechin, and proanthocyanidins with degrees of polymerization up to seven. The LMW phenolics of the commercial cultivar, 'July Prince', were further chromatographed and examined by RP-HPLC-ESI-MS. Derivatives of phenolic acids and flavan-3-ols, along with eriodictyol and quercetin diglycosides, were identified. Antioxidant capacities of the LMW and HMW fractions were determined using in vitro assays. H-ORAC FL and FRAP assays gave values of 872 to 2428 μmol Trolox eq./100 g f.w. and 309 to 432 μmol Fe 2+ eq./100 g f.w., respectively. The total phenolics content (TPC) was also measured; correlations between TPCs and antioxidant assays indicated that the HMW fractions of peach extracts were major contributors to the antioxidant capacity of the cultivars analyzed., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)