Late season apricot with tremendous flavor. One of the highest scoring apricot varieties to date at Dave Wilson Nursery fruit tastings.
In my opinion, this is a fantastic lie. This apricot has absolutely no aroma, very bland flavor, very dry fresh (no juice at all) and overall more resembles a potato than an apricot (hello, Jane Austen).
If you read the patent description, it’s more honest. This is obviously an apricot bred to survive handling and long-distance shipping to supermarket shelves (“Fruit with firm flesh, good handling and shipping quality”). The flavor is described as “good” which in commercial breeder’s speak means “mediocre at best”, which it is. Obviously, this variety has been a failure, as DWN does not offer it to commercial growers, but they shamelessly lie to sell these trees to unsuspecting home growers.
My tree only produced one fruit this yr. I thought it was outstanding. Not much of a sample. But your fruits sound like something went wrong in the culture/climate.
I have had a great success with apricots. My Moorpark is fantastic, Tomcot, Afghanistan and Harcot are great, Tilton which is supposed to be just ok is pretty good, and even Gold Kist while lacking in sugar and flavor is juicy and refreshing. Autumn Glo was bred about 40 miles from where I live, in a very similar climate.
My Autumn Glo had about 30 fruits this year, we ate about 20+ of them, a few are still on the tree.
Oh no…I grafted this variety last year and it has been growing really well. I’m hoping to have some fruits to taste next year.
I wasn’t expecting something as good as Blenheim but just wanted to have some more palatable apricots later in the season than those store bought ones.
Did you pick those before or after our recent heat wave?
I had the other late apricot, Early autumn. We grew it for 4 years and it was also horrible. My brother had one of the two late apricots in Fresno, it was no good either. I believe its too darn hot here for late apricots. They don’t like the extreme heat. I did add Autumn sprite aprium this year in hopes of apriums doing better than late apricots.
Patent descriptions of Earli-Autumn and Autumn Glo are pretty similar, and they both have a heavy dose of Perfection apricot in their parentage. Autumn Glo’s harvest is about a week later.
To have some late-season apricots, I will try putting Steindorf Blenheim and Autumn Royal grafts on northern branches to keep them shaded, perhaps this will work.
I don’t think such a critical review of a tree and purveyor is fair when based on performance of any variety from a single season or even at a single site. I have noticed quite a range of quality of same variety apricots at various sites that I manage. In the end, quality of cots is mostly about sugar and juice, IMO, the aroma of orange cots seems to be fairly consistent here.
My experience is that patent descriptions of fruit quality aren’t all that reliable either. Also, a lot of Zaiger varieties are bred for shelf life and sometimes, as with pluots, that means the trees build up sugar well before becoming soft ripe which can be a nice asset. Not too crazy about peaches that remain hard on the tree forever, though, but I’m thinking of White Lady- if it had some acid in its profile, I might enjoy eating a sweet crisp one.
I think you should give the tree another season and wait for other grower evaluations before declaring war.
I tried a Summer Delight aprium off my very small tree last week (only one fruit on it), it was very good. It tasted much better than the very early aprium variety Flavor Delight. It was a little bit soft but firm, not very jucy with a very pleasing apricot flavor. It did not get overly watery and mushy like Tilton and Blenheim do when they ripen up. I do have Autumn Glo, it was planted last Spring, will have to wait.
Well I’ve been having them for the first time and I think they’re awesome. And yes, I grow a lot of different varieties, so perhaps your experience is due to something like your climate or perhaps you’re not waiting long enough for them to ripen.
Apricots of the same variety can be juicy at one site and dry at another. Don’t know the reason, and I am only speaking from experience in the northeast. In CA any I picked off the tree were delicious- I didn’t know about the various varieties back then.
Trust me, I know how to determine when an apricot is ripe, I grow dozens of apricot varieties. Out tastes might differ, my Autumn Glo’s are sweet and nothing more, no apricot flavor that I expect. There are many fruit (peaches and plums) that taste much better in the same season. I’m going to topwork my Autumn Glo tree next spring to other apricot varieties that perform much better for me flavorwise.
When you lived in California such late season varieties as Autumn Glo didn’t exist yet, they have been bred relatively recently for their ripening season. However, they just don’t taste the same as varieties that ripen in the normal apricot season.
You are quite right and in fact, my brain read Autumn Glo and somehow translated it to Harglow. There’d be no surprise if apricots that bore distinctly later had different qualities, although latest peaches seem to often be good and generally of higher brix than earliest ones here. Same with plums, generally speaking.