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“They help me all summer long and bring excellent technical skills—especially when it comes to making fun and well in other southeastern states, he said. Layne is associate professor of pomology at Clemson University and South Car- olina’s state fruit specialist. He came to Clemson in 1997 after working for four years at Kentucky State University in Frankfort leading efforts to develop the native American pawpaw as a new fruit crop for farmers who were trying to find creative videos for YouTube!” —Desmond Layne high-value horticultural alternatives to growing tobacco. At Clemson, his primary work has been in the evaluation of advanced selections and cultivars for the commercial peach industry. He has also conducted research in orchard management systems, disease management, and use of reflective films. His peach evaluation Web site contains 11 years of data on the characteristics and performance of more than 350 varieties of peaches and nectarines. His latest development is posting eval- uation data within 48 hours of collection. You can find out today how a particular cultivar performed when it ripened earlier this week. This also includes digital photos to a standard, scaled background. As each variety ripens, he and his assis- tants collect the fruit, bring them to the laboratory, test them for sugar levels and firmness, measure their size, assess their flavor, shape, and color, and comment on any interesting features. Photographs of the representative fruit are taken to show all of the important details that a grower or breeder would be interested in (skin coloration, shape, size, flesh color, etc.). Layne, who is 48, comes by his interest in peaches honestly. His first summer job at age 14 was picking peaches at a local farm. His father is Dr. Richard E.C. Layne, who led the Agriculture Canada breeding program at Harrow, Ontario, from 1963 to 1996. During his career at Harrow, Des’s father released and named 36 new fruit cultivars—15 peaches, 13 apricots, 4 nec- tarines, and 4 pears—many containing Har (or Harrow) as the prefix for the name (for example, Harrow Diamond, Harcot). Desmond grew up working with his dad, and, following in his father’s foot- steps, he brought his own three sons into the work of fruit evaluation. “They help me all summer long and bring excellent technical skills—especially when it comes to making fun and creative videos for YouTube!” he says of sons Stephen, 21, Michael, 19, and Daniel, 16. 350 cultivars Layne maintains a large collection of trees, about 350 cultivars, at Clemson’s Musser Fruit Research Farm at Seneca, ten miles from campus. Many of these trees were donated by commercial nurseries for testing. He also currently has or has recently completed large on-farm grower trials in the two primary production regions of the state. Layne uses a standard eight-point scale for rating peaches. Is there a full crop? Is the shape spherical or lopsided? How deep is the suture line? Are there pointed tips that could be bruised in han- dling? How fuzzy are they? How firm? Do they taste good? At the end of the year, Layne produces an annual report in which he picks the year’s top varieties. Layne just completed a two-year term as president of the American Pomological Society, the oldest fruit organization in North America—again following in his father’s footsteps. Richard Layne was president in 1991–1992. In 2008, Layne co-edited with Daniele Bassi of the University of Milan, Italy, a new book, The Peach: Botany, Production and Uses. The list of 49 chapter authors reads like Who’s Who in Peaches. “This is the most comprehensive text on peaches that has ever been published,” he said. “It features an entire chapter on the history of cultivation of peaches in China (the home of peaches) with translated accounts going back 3,000 years!” • 20 JULY 2011 GOOD FRUIT GROWER www.goodfruit.com