Cold storage of peaches- mistakes and solutions

General Fruit Growing
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Getting a bumper crop of peaches is always such a thrill!
But storing them to ripen over time is challenging.
Here are several of my mistakes.

  1. The first year I had a surplus, I picked peaches that tested soft at the neck and immediately placed them in a spare refrigerator. The storage temp ranged from 38-45. Within a week, peaches removed from storage and allowed to counter soften were dry and mealy. They tasted like grocery store peaches - so yuk! Meanwhile the unrefrigerated counter ripened peaches remained soft and juicy.
    As it turned out I had made a major mistake. Peaches need to counter ripen for 24-48 hrs before refrigerating.

  2. The next year I made sure to counter ripen hard peaches for 48 hrs before placing in refrigerator. The results were better but I still only got about 3 weeks of storage before fruit became hard textured and juiceless. Many had brown interiors. It turned out the problem was with the nature of refrigeration.
    For peaches (and apples and pears), refrigeration at 35-50 results in chilling injury. Inadvertently I was storing peaches in that danger zone.

This year I am using a chest freezer with an Inkbird controller to keep the storage temp at 32-34.
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Set at a 2 degree interval, I can keep the freezer in a narrow 32-34 range.
To increase humidity, I’ve got a tray of water resting on base of freezer and to decrease CO2 buildup, I’ll open freezer 1xday for air exchange.

I picked up some free glassware trays from a canopy store, so I am arranging my fruit in shallow, stackable 25 piece trays. (Those pictured still need to ripen at room temp for 48hrs.)
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The last requirement is that after 10-14 days of refrigerated storage, peaches need to be removed from freezer for 1 day of 68 degrees before being placed back in cold storage.

Wow- that’s a science!

You can read more info here: How to Prevent Chilling Injuries in Peaches - Growing Produce

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Thanks for sharing! Does variety make a difference- like Heath cling?

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Yes, cultivar does matter. Some are more susceptible to chilling injury (CI) than others. This study lists CI injury for different California cultivars:

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Great information. I agree with you about the store bought peaches. Dry and mealy. This year I had an abundance of peaches as well. LOTS more than I could use in one setting. I even made 48 jars peach preserves. Still I have six 5 gallon buckets full that I picked today and there are another probably four to five more 5 gallon buckets worth that will be ready to be picked in about three days. Really helpful information.
It makes sense once you read it all.
Thanks again for this helpful information.

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I have been doing a simple variation on this. If I have too many fruits that are fully ripe on the counter, I put those fully ripe fruits in the fridge. It turns out they last a lot longer than I expected, about two or three weeks. This lets me get a wider interval for when I can eat that particular fruit.

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Some more older good advice…

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Per your link: Arctic Glo, Rose and Star nectarines and Honey Kist nectarine had no chill injury after 5 weeks at both 0c and 5c. That’s very useful info since 5c is about fridge temps. They seem to be the top performers that are also available to home growers.

Thank
You.

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