I have ‘Robada’ apricots on my ‘Frankencot’ tree. They have grown so fast . . . you can almost see them getting larger. This is their second year. They were beautiful last year . . . but taste was disappointing.
This year - some Harcots appeared . . . and Hoyt Monrose.
Will be fun to see what that fruit is like.
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just grafted 4 hoyt montrose and harcot on my black ice plum and carmine jewel cherry. i hope they take. also have a brookcot on the plum already.
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I’ve got unknown 'cots grafted to my prune and to my prune-on-tomentosa but they are still in bloom! I’m afraid a cold snap may have taken out the first flush of blossoms, but there are some later buds opening up now so I may get a few.
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Is your cherry in a pot or a greenhouse, or outside? I did my very first graft yesterday—a “precious” apricot scion on a St Julien rootstock—and I put it in a pot inside because I read that apricot grafts callous best around room temperature. I have a couple of in-ground trees I’d like to graft the rest of the scion wood on and you have me wondering if it’s warm enough outside now.
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Adding Tomcot, Sweet Gem (not much info about this one), and Moorpark… already have a Chinese Morman apricot. Couldnt pass up the Moorpark at Rural King at $25.
@PomGranny what is that you tie your tags with? Looks beefier than bread ties. I need something better than the wire that comes with my ties and i dont think i will like zipties going forward.
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After getting my first 2 fruit last year on my Katy apricot (2nd leaf), I came up with a 0 this year. Not a single bloom.
Not sure why. Its an incredibly low chill variety and we had a very good chill winter.
Disappointing
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Advanced so far so soon! Mine are still in the shuck
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Hi Kris.
A couple of years ago I ordered some tags that came with extra long ties. They are just like bread ties - but plastic on wire. These are them. There are other similar ones, in different quantities, as well. I expect that you could find the same 6" ties, without the tags . . . but not sure how you’d search. ?
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mine are out in the yard. i got 2 more apricot scions, i forgot i ordered, in yesterday. going to graft them to my lutowka rose sour cherry today. in total ill have 6 different apricots grafted . hopefully they all take. if they don’t work out, all i have to do is remove a branch instead of a whole tree and replace with something that does do well here. did the same with my pears. it’s just the wife and i so we don’t need a ton of 1 kind of fruit. I’ve been warned that apricots can be difficult but im counting on our snow here to keep things dormant longer.
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In that case, I might try grafting one of my yard trees this week. I’ve been trying to decide whether it’s better to graft in lowish temperatures or wait until June, but I’d rather not store my scion wood in the fridge too long.
I have a peach seedling and a myrobalan rootstock that used to be an apricot. I think that one died because of delayed graft rejection. The constant mild wet weather, combined with our slow to warm soil seems to do most of them in here, which is too bad because we are usually weeks past our last frost before any fruit trees start blooming.
I’m looking forward to seeing how your cherry/apricot grafts work out. I’ve noticed my Romeo cherry is my first stone fruit to start breaking dormancy—I think a major problem with apricots here is that the scion wakes up too long before the rootstock, then runs out of energy. Maybe sour cherries are the solution to that!
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Yeah, that’s been the way of apircots for me. I have small Katy and pretty large Flavor Delight aprium, and neither have ever bothered to bloom. I get ~1600 chill hours too. We have another huge apricot down at our place in Sonoma County that is around 60 years old, and to my dad’s memory, it’s only fruited twice. Plenty of chill hours there, too.
This year, I grafted over some major branches with Orangered, Tomcot, Monique, and Nicole in hopes that something will give.
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That might be my plan too…faster to fruit with a developed tree.
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Seems to me, IIRC (which is always a question!) my only successes with apricots have been with buds or chips.
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i have brookcot apricot cleft that took 2 years ago on my black ice plum. put out 2 flowers last spring but didnt set any fruit. i added hoyt montrose and tomcot on that tree 2 days ago. hopefully that helps with pollination if they take. 1st time trying to graft them to established sour cherry so we’ll see.
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everything stays dormant until a week after the last of the snow melts here then everything grows out within a 2-3 week span.i think our deep snow keeps the ground from freezing too much so once the snow goes everything grows gangbusters! i have several 1 to 1,5m sprouts that came out a couple meters from the mother plants. that’s what i grafted to. we have a few snow banks left but besides that the yard is snow free.
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we put in two last year- a hunza and a scout. I like pome and my partner likes stone fruit so he wanted them, I picked the varieties.
they are leafing out now, the scout has a few blooms on it already but it looks like there’s more to come on both.
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Hi Anji
I’ve never heard of those 2 apricot varieties. That person on the forum called ‘Ukie’ sent me a Zard scion, an apricot which I’d never heard of, either. He said it is very late blooming - and he lives in PA. So, that one might be of interest to you. Maybe next year he can send you some scions. He also grows Harostar.
I actually managed to spray a couple of times. I don’t like having to do it, but if we don’t . . . we get nothing except bugs and rot. Because of my experiences, when I hear someone say that they are growing fruit in VA without any spray - and calling it ‘organic’ . . . well - I think it’s baloney!
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I might try a graft of it on one of these. they’re pretty leafy already which is good, no blooms but they only went in last year.
Cots at shuck split and weather heating up, so I did the curc spray today
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