Sha kar pareh white apricot

Has anyone grown a sha kar pareh apricot? Is it worth growing? I’m planning to order one from Raintree this week, and I was wondering if it’s worth the trouble growing it. I’m also planning to use it for my breeding program.

TWM

You may have to search for Scott’s stone fruit report. I think he is trailing this variety.

Tony

Here is Scott Smith’s report from earlier this year. He is in Baltimore. Copied and pasted below:

Shekar Pareh plumcot - This is an “aprium”, its a plum/apricot hybrid that tastes very much 50-50 plum-apricot. For some reason it is always sold as an apricot, but its fairly obvious from its leaves, growth habit, and fruit that it is an aprium. It took several years to get productive but eventually settled into very good production. It needs heavy shoot thinning. The tree is also far too vigorous and requires a lot of summer pruning and shoot thinning. I have had dropping problems so have been harvesting earlier, when they are pleasant tasting but lower in sugars and more sour. Later fruits are more like apricot, more sweet, but too late and they get mushy. Overall I don’t think the fruit like my climate, they don’t complete ripening and start turning to mush when they should be completing their ripening. In a more dry climate they may ripen well. The fruits are very disease and crack resistant, they always look nice in spite of the minimal spraying I do. They are only moderately susceptible to brown rot. Overall, a very interesting and unusual fruit that doesn’t quite make it in my climate. Removed 2013.

Hey that sounds familiar :smile:

Its a very unusual fruit, not like the other hybrids I have grown. I don’t know if the lack of complete ripening is climate related or not. For breeding I think it could still be good as it has many interesting qualities.

Here’s my sha kar pareh apricot. It was shipped around late-May.

Scot, what pollinators did you use to pollinate your shaker pareh apricot?

Next year, I will do a couple of experiments with it, I will cross it with my: peach x almond hybrid, Mariposa plum, F1 Moor park Apricot, peacharine, and my two cherries.

I had many varieties around it so not sure which one was helping. Tomcot and Zard were the most likely ones doing the job.

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Did you planted any seeds from Shakar pareh?

No, I am not doing much breeding to speak of. I have a few peach rootstocks I grew from seed which I am letting a limb of the rootstock grow out, but thats about the extent of my “stone fruit breeding program” :smile:

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Any specific reason you don’t do much breeding, Scott? I’d think you could mix up a lot of interesting genetics with the different varieties you grow.

I started a few projects but realized I didn’t have the land to devote to it.

Speaking of that I did get my first partial success this last summer, I grew some Chinese fragrant pears from seed and one of them finally fruited. They don’t taste like the fragrant pears I got in the grocery, but they are interesting and different. They are supposed to sit in the fridge until March, will see how they taste then.

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My Shakar pareh plumcot only produced two fruits.

I pollinated them with Sweet Bagel flat Peach pollen.

Interesting…I have this cot…i’ll let you know how mine does if/when it blooms. I may try cross pollinating a few blooms.

Do you label them someone or write it down?

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Yes. I tag them with yarn, then I write down the color codes on a paper.

For Example, on my Rainier cherries, after I pollinated them with Nectarine and shakar pareh plumcot pollen, I tagged them with different yarn colors. The flowers that I pollinated with Flavor Top Nectarine, I tagged them with white yarn. And the flowers that I pollinated with Shakar pareh plumcot pollen I tagged them with red yarn. Then I wrote ir down on a piece of paper.

Since this is possibly a 50/50 plum-apricot hybrid. You could pollinate them with a plum, then you will get a 75% plum, 25% apricot hybrid. If you pollinate them with an apricot, the parentage will be reversed.

Since I pollinated mine with peach pollen, I will get a hybrid that will have 50% peach, 25% apricot, and 25% plum in its parentage.

I got fruit this year, hopefully it stays on the tree.

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For me this variety took quite awhile to start fruiting a lot, but once it got going it made a massive amount of fruit every year. They wouldn’t ripen too well in my climate, too sour and not enough sweet, so I topworked it eventually. I expect it likes dry climates.

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Shakar Pareh Plumcot.

I have one…mine is just about flowering. I hope to try them this year.

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