Why is California #1 in peaches?
Georgia is called the Peach State, but California grows the most peaches. Many of California's peaches never reach a fruit stand: they are cling peaches, grown for cans. The story runs through gold miners, a cold winter rest that every peach tree needs, and a valley that gives it one.
California grows more peaches than any other state — and Georgia, the famous “Peach State,” is not even second. Check the ranking in the quiz below. California sits at #1 in many other rankings on this site, too (grapes, oranges, figs, dates and olives among them). This note follows the peaches.
Basis: USDA NASS Quick Stats, PEACHES - PRODUCTION, MEASURED IN TONS, 2024 (only states with published figures). The other #1s come from this site's USDA NASS quizzes. The numbers, the full rankings and the sources are on the quiz pages.
Peaches came to California early. The California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom says Spanish padres (priests) found that cling peaches thrived along the mission trail, and the fruit became well established during the Gold Rush, when settlers began growing and preserving peaches to sell to miners. They are called cling peaches because the flesh of the fruit “clings” to the pit. Today California grows nearly all of the commercial cling peaches in the United States, and most cling peaches are sold canned: at the cannery they are pitted, peeled and sliced, and the fresh fruit is generally processed within a day.
Here is the surprise: a peach tree needs a cold winter. The University of California's pest-management program explains that fruit trees need freezing or close-to-freezing temperatures in winter, and it measures that cold in chilling hours, the number of hours below 45°F. Too little chill, and the leaves come out late and the fruit develops unevenly. Peaches also bloom early, so late frosts can hurt the flowers, and summer has to be hot enough to ripen the fruit. Cool, wet climates are not usually good for high-quality peaches.
Who says so: University of California Statewide IPM Program (UC Agriculture and Natural Resources) (opens in a new tab)
California's cling peaches grow in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, with major producing counties including Yuba, Sutter, Fresno and Tulare. The same fact sheet says these areas are ideal because the winter rest season gives enough chilling hours to set the next year's crop, and later, warm summer days, rich soil and enough water make the fruit grow strong.
So how did Georgia become the Peach State? The New Georgia Encyclopedia says Georgia earned the name in the decades after the Civil War, when the end of slavery pushed farmers to look for crops other than cotton, and a grower named Samuel Rumph found a new yellow peach, the Elberta, which shipped better than older kinds. Georgia's peach belt sits along the fall line, far enough north for enough winter chill but far enough south to avoid late frosts. And Georgia's peaches go a different way: nearly all are sold fresh, and there is no significant peach processing (canning) in the state.
Who says so: New Georgia Encyclopedia (opens in a new tab)
Could warmer winters change the peach map? A 2009 study by University of California, Davis researchers found that winter chill in parts of the Central Valley had already dropped by the year 2000, and, under the warming scenarios it studied, projected that chill is likely to keep declining through this century; areas with safe winter chill for crops like peaches, apricots and cherries could almost disappear by the end of it. The researchers also point to ways to adapt: many fruit trees come in varieties that need less chill, and plant breeders may be able to breed new ones that need even less.
Who says so: University of California, Davis (study published in PLOS ONE) (opens in a new tab)
Note: a “theory”, “folklore” or “outlook” is not settled fact. Always check who is saying it.
📊 Sources for the rankings mentioned in this note (links to the original data and retrieval dates) are on each quiz page below.