I grew Blenheim and Sungold apricots for fifteen/twenty years. Blenheim died but Sungold produced prodigiously, say every fifth year. The other years, early frost in the Chicago zone got them. We downsized, and I sold my orchard of eighty trees. At our new location, I planted Hunza apricot on Citation from Raintree, and Chinese Mormon apricot on Citation from Bay Laurel Nursery. Both of these are claimed to be very resistant to early frosts. ???
Does anyone have experience with these varieties and others that you would recommend?
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Mormon is a good choice. At my location I have seen the flowers snowed on and then go on to set a good crop. Wenatchee Moorpark is another to consider. For your zone the question is what are the latest flowering varieties.
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Purvis nursery has the best selection I’ve seen.
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Montana Fruit Trees (friends of Bob Purvis), also have an increasing selection. They seem to quite like Zard, as does Bob apparently.
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I had similar experience in Z6 with the ones you had. Although every 4 - 5 years I just got moderate production. I never got massive production from any of them. I grew them for about 15 years and finally gave up on them. I needed the room and put in peaches. Although if I had plenty of space I would have kept them for a couple of crops of apricots per decade.
There is nothing like a tree ripened apricot. The cots in the stores are absolute garbage. Same thing with plums and peaches. If you have some photos of your old orchard, lets seem em. I always like to see what growers have done.
Good luck!
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Tomcot, Orangered, and Alfred are among the top favorites for growers on this site in frost-prone regions. Zard, Harglow, and Hoyt Montrose would also be good bets.
Sungold and moongold are both very cold hardy, but are now generally considered antiquated because more-recent breeding programs have produced better varieties. Anything out of the Rutgers or Harrow breeding program is likely to do well in Illinois.
I would also third that Bob Purvis is the best person to email these questions. He currently has scionwood and rootstocks available, so now is the time to place an order.
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I got scions from Bob this summer of Hargrand, Helena, Ilona, Jimmy Thomas, Robed, and Zard. All the scions were in excellent shape, and I had good success chip-budding them.
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Bob and Luke have a nice video on a number of these varieties.
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Thanks. That is just the information I was hoping to find. I have been trying for over 15 years to grow apricots with no success. Now I have hope again. In fact, I just broke down and ordered more trees, which is probably not wise at my age. Last night was -15F., so the hardier, the better.
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Thankyou everyone… Finally we see legend Bob Purvis in person!
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i just ordered some as well. ive tried several in the past with no luck. ordered harlayne and i think harcot. supposed to be very disease resistant as well as hardy. brown rot and blossom end blight have shown them selves in my sour cherries despite regular sprays.
There are two subjects here
1 Cold hardiness,
2 Fruit set
If you really have severe enough winters where your losing trees then definitely look towards hardy varieties but most people’s problems with cots is fruit set. This is related to weather conditions at bloom time (mostly) and the best thing you can do about it is use varieties with the latest bloom time.
Some varieties also have better built in disease resistance so will be able to somewhat fight off the fungal and bacterial problems that destroy the new buds, blossoms, shoots. This being initiated by the cold, wet weather around bloom time.
At the research station we had best luck with the Harrow selections, Harcot in particular. Also Puget Gold would produce some fruit when no others would. It was the most consistant for production.
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Cool video. Nice to see a little bit of Bobs orchard
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I grew Puget Gold, Mormon and Moorpark in the moist PNW of California. Small spotted fruit on good years, except for the few huge PGolds until the tree died one limb at a time. Flavor was always terrific. I don’t spray.
My husband got me to move 180-degrees different to high desert of southern Utah with the lure of growing stone fruit successfully. First neighbor into fruit said Katy was the apricot for our area and we planted one immediately. Then he brought over the fruit several months later and I was not impressed. Looked up the variety on line and neither are most people who have choices. I’ve since planted Chinese/Mormon and Flavor King Aprium at the recommendations of other desert growers. Last year the Katy produced well and after three years here without a decent flavored apricot in the stores the Katy was beginning to taste better to me! 
Maybe it’s something we’re doing but it’s probably just a deadening of tastebuds living in the desert. We’re happy with anything that has moisture! This year should be the first mature try for the other two trees.
Good luck to you all!
BTW, peaches are very successful here, and figs and pomegranates, so that’s something…
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