2016 Tomcot Zone 9b

Tomcot has done well in my yard. That’s all I can give you. :slight_smile: Our summers are hot 95-100 most days with a couple weeks of 105 or so. Very little chill …around 200 or less. Some years we get more.

I have never paid attention to see if Blenheim and Tomcot bloom at the same time or not as I have so many different pollinators. I think Tomcot is earlier. You could always graft a different apricot onto Tomcot if you wanted an additional pollinator.

Thank you Jennifer. So that being said, you definitely have a lot pollination partners for your tomcot and you can not verify that tomcot can fruit well on its own. Correct?

Our summer here are 100-110. I do think we get some good chill hours and it does get really cold here in winter nights.

Correct. I do not know for certain. Maybe try emailing amadioranch who is in AZ. Did you find any of his old threads?

I did email him a while back about rootstocks here but never heard back from him.
You guys are great here on this thread, though it is an old thread but everybody is pitching in giving me good suggestion and wonderful insight. Can’t tell you how much I appreciate your support.

All my stone fruit is on Citation rootstook and has done well for me at my location. BUT, you cannot let it get too dry or growth will be stunted for that year. Pain in the butt but it is the rootstock I prefer. Easier for me to control growth. My soil is heavy with a lot of clay. I also heavily mulch all my trees with a minimum of 6" of wood chips.

Oh, how sweet of you sharing your rootstock experience. Thank you. I ordered all my trees on standard rootstock, mostly on Nema , the standard ones. The nursery owner in California said that nema is good for Arizona. And my thoughts behind it is I thought I might have some problems growing peach nectarine, apple , apricot over here since it is so hot in summer, so I want to choose the strong rootstock so the tree can grow strong ( i am hoping, but it will be struggling here in hot summer dog days ). I do intend to keep them pruned back to 8-10 feet tall. My backyard we have 4 feet tall retaining wall all around, and I have to keep at least 5 feet away to plant fruit trees. So interesting, I’m learning so much right now. I called nursery a thousand times to switch my order I think the6 are getting tired of hearing from me haha. Now I have to call them back to switch cot n candy into something once I figured it out. I’m doing research all over now trying to find another apricot, any thoughts dear ? Harcot? Harglow? Florda gold? Anything?

I saw on an Arizona website,that Katy and Goldkist worked for them.
If Orange Red will grow there,it’s very good.I have that one,because of fruitnut’s high marks,but may need a pollinator.bb

Hi Bb,
Thank you for your comments! I do know goldfkist does really well here but unfortunately everyone I talked to including the nursery owners said that goldkist is bland, just ok. And they wouldn’t recommend for me to grow. So I give up on that one.
Right now I am looking at harcot, Harglow, flora gold , Moorpark ( if I can grow) Tilton , do you have any experience with the ones on the list?
Thank you
Jolina

Gold Kist is subpar for fresh eating, low sugar, bland, nonuniform ripening. Only good for jam.

With high summer heat, early ripening varieties should do better for you. Orangered is early ripening (first week of June here, likely late May in AZ), but it blooms with Blenheim. Orangered has the best flavor of all early apricots, but it comes slowly into bearing, you will need to wait a few years until it’s fully productive.

Tomcot is also a early ripening variety (end of May to early June here), but it blooms two weeks before Blenheim and Orangered, so will need another early bloomer to cross-pollinate. You can plant Tomcot and graft Nicole on it or vice versa and they will pollinate each other (they bloom and ripen at about the same time). Also can graft Apache to the same tree for additional cross-pollination and very early ripening fruit. When well pollinated, Tomcot is a very strong and consistent bearer, it produces a bumper crop year after year. Very nice looking, large, uniformly sized, clean fruit. Good apricot flavor, but compared to Orangered it’s relatively low on sugar. Nicole is also a strong producer when well pollinated.

Golden Sweet is a very high quality apricot, and it should cross-pollinate with Blenheim (actually they are both self fruitful, but additional cross-pollination never hurts). Unfortunately, it ripens just a couple of days before Blenheim, so does not provide much of an extension for the apricot season. I actually prefer Golden Sweet to Blenheim flavor wise, so I recommend at least adding a graft.

Tilton is late ripening (early-mid July here), so its ripening time will be during very high heat in AZ, I think this might be problematic.

Regarding the rootstock, Nemaguard is suitable for very well draining soil (which is common in AZ, but you should check that this is true for your backyard). I would not recommend using Citation unless you have very heavy clay soil. Citation tends to suffer in the summer if it does not get enough water, and with AZ heat it will never get enough water if your soil drains well.

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