Peck, Cider

A ten-fold increase in hard cider production over the past decade has created a tremendous need for research into the entire supply chain, from growing specialized cider apples to fermentation to marketing. Assistant professor of horticulture Dr. Gregory Peck (’09, PhD) will give an overview of the U.S. cider industry, how his cider research program and teaching are addressing industry needs, and how he is connecting historical texts from the collections at Cornell University Library to genetic fingerprinting in a single research project. Dr. Peck is a pomologist with more than two decades of professional experience working with specialty crops in California, Washington, New York, and Virginia. Following his bachelor’s work in Comparative Religion at the University of Vermont in 1994, Dr. Peck earned a certificate in Ecological Horticulture at UC Santa Cruz in 1996, his Master’s degree in Horticulture at Washington State University in 2004, and his Doctoral degree in Horticulture at Cornell University in 2009. In 2011 he joined the faculty as assistant professor of horticulture at Virginia Tech, and then in 2015 he joined us here at Cornell, where he spends about 40% of his time teaching, and 60% of his time doing research on sustainable fruit production systems. His current projects focus on hard cider production, sustainable soil and groundcover management for apple orchards, and improving crop-load management in apple trees through the use of a pollen tube growth model. Dr. Peck's research activities are already earning him a widespread reputation as a Cornell scientist dedicated to helping farmers thrive with new innovations. Last year, the magazine “The Modern Farmer” described Dr. Peck as "the Grand Pomologist of Hard Cider," whose work as the nation’s preeminent hard cider scientist is making Cornell an epicenter of resurgence in the country's hard cider industry.