Peaches & Nectarines

Elberta, the peach that made Georgia synonymous with the fruit, was introduced in 1875 by Samuel Rumph, who named it after his wife on a friend's suggestion. Rumph shipped an early un-iced trial batch to New York in 1875 and it arrived in good condition, then designed refrigerated railcars to move peaches north, never patenting either the peach or the railcar so his neighbors could freely adopt both.

Belle of Georgia, a beloved white-fleshed counterpart, is generally credited to Rumph's uncle around 1870, with one popular account tying its rise to the boll weevil devastation of Georgia's cotton crops.

Redhaven, still one of the most widely planted peaches in the world, was bred at Michigan State University specifically to ripen weeks ahead of Elberta while matching its size and firmness — released in 1940, it became the new industry benchmark.

Reliance was bred at the University of New Hampshire with one explicit goal: survive extreme cold. It notably bore fruit after living through minus 25°F winter trials in 1961–62.

Frost was bred specifically for resistance to peach leaf curl, a fungal disease that seriously limits organic peach growing in wet-spring climates, and remains the standard recommendation for that specific problem.

The flattened "donut" peach shape traces back over a thousand years to ancient China. First brought to the US around 1869–1871, flat peaches remained rare for a century because their early bloom made them highly frost-prone. Rutgers University bred a hardier strain through the 1960s–70s and released it as "Saturn"; Frieda's Specialty Produce trademarked it as the "Donut Peach" starting in 1986.