Peach
History

Although its botanical name Prunus persica refers to Persia, genetic studies suggest peaches originated in China, where they have been cultivated since the Neolithic period. Until recently, cultivation was believed to have started around 2000 BC. More recent evidence indicates that domestication occurred as early as 6000 BC in Zhejiang Province of China. The oldest archaeological peach stones are from the Kuahuqiao site near Hangzhou. Archaeologists point to the Yangtze River Valley as the place where the early selection for favorable peach varieties probably took place. Peaches were mentioned in Chinese writings and literature beginning from the early first millennium BC.

A domesticated peach appeared very early in Japan, in 4700–4400 BC, during the Jōmon period. It was already similar to modern cultivated forms, where the peach stones are significantly larger and more compressed than earlier stones. This domesticated type of peach was brought into Japan from China. Nevertheless, in China itself, this variety is currently attested only at a later date around 3300 to 2300 BC.

In India, the peach first appeared by about 1700 BC, during the Harappan period.

It is also found elsewhere in West Asia in ancient times. Peach cultivation reached Greece by 300 BC. Alexander the Great is sometimes said to have introduced them into Greece after conquering Persia, but no historical evidence for this claim has been found. Peaches were, however, well known to the Romans in the first century AD; the oldest known artistic representations of the fruit are in two fragments of wall paintings, dated to the first century AD, in Herculaneum, preserved due to the Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD, and now held in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. Archaeological finds show that peaches were cultivated widely in Roman northwestern Continental Europe, but production collapsed around the sixth century; some revival of production followed with the Carolingian Renaissance of the ninth century.

An article on peach tree cultivation in Spain is brought down in Ibn al-'Awwam 's 12th-century agricultural work, Book on Agriculture. The peach was brought to the Americas by Spanish explorers in the 16th century, and eventually made it to England and France in the 17th century, where it was a prized and expensive treat. Horticulturist George Minifie supposedly brought the first peaches from England to its North American colonies in the early 17th century, planting them at his estate of Buckland in Virginia. Although Thomas Jefferson had peach trees at Monticello, American farmers did not begin commercial production until the 19th century in Maryland, Delaware, Georgia, South Carolina, and finally Virginia.

The Shanghai honey nectar peach was a key component of both the food culture and agrarian economy the area where the modern megacity of Shanghai stands. Peaches were the cornerstone of early Shanghai's garden culture. As modernization and westernization swept through the city the Shanghai honey nectar peach nearly disappeared completely. Much of modern Shanghai is built over these gardens and peach orchards.

In April 2010, an international consortium, the International Peach Genome Initiative, which includes researchers from the United States, Italy, Chile, Spain, and France, announced they had sequenced the peach tree genome (doubled haploid Lovell). Recently, it published the peach genome sequence and related analyses. The sequence is composed of 227 million nucleotides arranged in eight pseudomolecules representing the eight peach chromosomes (2n = 16). In addition, 27,852 protein-coding genes and 28,689 protein-coding transcripts were predicted.

Particular emphasis in this study is reserved for the analysis of the genetic diversity in peach germplasm and how it was shaped by human activities such as domestication and breeding. Major historical bottlenecks were found, one related to the putative original domestication that is supposed to have taken place in China about 4,000–5,000 years ago, the second is related to the western germplasm and is due to the early dissemination of the peach in Europe from China and the more recent breeding activities in the United States and Europe. These bottlenecks highlighted the substantial reduction of genetic diversity associated with domestication and breeding activities.
keywords:existence