Results of Southern California Apricot Experience

General Fruit Growing
#1

I like to push the limits of winter chill in my San Diego inland environment, located in the Poway/Rancho Bernardo area. I thought my experiences might help others in Southern California who are deciding which apricot varieties to try. The closer to the coast you get, the worse the experience seems to be, from talking to others.

I write these in order of crop harvest. Some of these are just multigraft branches, and I only have 4 years of experience in this location.

Royal Rosa - Harvest mid May. Rated at 500 chill hours by Dave Wilson nursery, this variety fruits every year, and takes all the abuse I give it. Fruit was at times good but nowhere near as good as Blenheim. Very vigorous tree. Lacked intensity of flavor and acidity. Overall flavor grade B-.

Goldkist - Harvest late May. Rated at 300 hours. Produced every year I had it. Removed it when I changed landscape design. Had some acidity. Overall flavor grade B.

Katy - late May. Rated at 200-300 hours. Flavor poor, grade D. Production poor.

Tomcot - early June. Rated at 500 hours. Only had one large branch of this variety but it seemed to require more chill. I really enjoyed the different flavor. More floral. Sweetness was mild. Flavor grade A-, probably would say B+ if I got enough fruit to get bored of its uniqueness. Most years does not fruit much. I only had one branch though.

Blenheim (Royal) - Harvest early June. Rated at 400 hours. Known for being low chill. Fruits almost every year if I do summer pruning rather than winter. The flavor is amazing. No other tree compares to this. Silicon Valley was once full of orchards of this variety. The southern California Blenheim is sometimes actually better, and I know that comment will be controversial, and it varies by the year, but I think they are sweeter here. This may just be from drought conditions at harvest. Flavor grade A+.

Tropic Gold - Harvest the same as Blenheim. Flavor the same as Blenheim. This variety exists because a tree cropped more reliably than Blenheim in Camarillo, yet tasted like Blenheim. LE Cooke marketed it but I can not find evidence they were ever able to patent it. I remain unconvinced this variety is anything other than Blenheim. Maybe something else caused it to crop better? Flavor grade A+. Prove to me that this variety is anything other than Blenheim. Production was not better than Blenheim either.

Harcot - supposed to be July, fruited in early June for me. Rated at 700 hours, never produced much but gave a few each year and was healthy. Flavor grade C, but was probably intended for a different climate

Moorpark - I have had one fruit from a not completely mature tree. It was very good, more mild than Blenheim. I like the diversity but Blenheim is still my favorite. The tree appears to be dwarfing naturally, and anyone experimenting with this variety should consider a more standard size rootstock. Flavor grade A

Earli-Autumn -Harvest was in July, not exactly Autumn. Rated at 500 hours. It was a late season Royal Rosa, fruited heavily every year and the fruit was decent. I pulled mine out. Flavor grade B.

Autumn Royal - Harvest was in July. Rated at 400 chill hours. Fruited very heavily every year. Got pit burn. I never had a single fruit that tasted as good as Royal, even though this variety is a sport mutation of it. Some were okay. I suspect that these sport mutations are really just defects in ripening, and that does impair flavor. Pit burn, cracking, and insects destroy the crops. I chopped it down. Flavor grade B-, not counting pit burn. D if you include that.

Autumn Glo - Harvest was early August. Rated at 500 chill hours. Very vigorous tree did not produce well, possibly because it was still growing. I ended up removing it when I changed my landscape structure. It gave a few fruit each year, never a full crop. They were never amazing, but decent for the late season. Flavor grade B. Production grade D.

Recommendations:
For Southern California coastal, you are in a totally different climate and this information is probably only marginally helpful to you. Experiment and post your results! Try Tropic Gold and Blenheim and see if TG actually fruits more. I am skeptical.

For Southern California inland, plant Blenheim. Maybe you wont get a full crop every year, but that will just make you happier the years you do. The flavor here is amazing.

Chill estimates:
Royal Rosa, Earli-Autumn, and Autumn Royal appear to be lower chill than expected. Very productive.

Autumn Glo, Harcot, and Moorpark are demonstrably high chill, which is no surprise. Katy may be high chill also, which is a surprise. Tomcotā€™s 500 hours are real.

Please share your own experiences?

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#2

In 2000 I moved to a 1/2 acre property in western Rancho Penasquitos, on Ellingham aka Christmas Card Lane. There was already a well-established Katy apricot perhaps 15 years old. It produced every year and when fed in 2:1:3 NPK ratio provided good flavored fruits. The chill hours I measured there ranged 250-300 hours.

You are spot on about Blenheim.

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#3

Thatā€™s it? All that experimentation and it comes out as Royal Blenheim?

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#4

I mainly used the varieties that are promoted at nurseries because I did not know enough. Those were developed by breeders whose primary income depended on commercial industry. Things like appearance, uniformity of ripening, disease resistance, shippability, ability to look orange before they are actually soft are all higher priorities than flavor, in that context.

Not sure if you (Kokopelli) intended a criticism of what I did. What was I supposed to do? I read the labels and got what was available to me and nothing satisfied as well as the 200 year old variety (bred at a time where flavor was paramount).

If you think there are other varieties you would recommend I try in a low chill area, please share the idea. I do have some others I am currently trying and have reached beyond nursery varieties but they are not ready, often mere twigs that were grafted. I donā€™t have a ton of land so I am limited in how much I can do, and water is expensive even if I did. And I am now reluctant to try the latest and greatest.

I appreciate Richardā€™s suggestion and I have no doubt that some of the varieties that disappointed me could be grown with better success under different conditions. Also it is conceivable that more time can improve flavor. I planted Washington Navel oranges in 2014 also. The results for those were:
2014 left one just to try, was horrible (I know you are supposed to take them all off)
2015 left a couple just to try, horrible
2016 decent
2017 very good
2018 outstanding
2019 the best I have ever tasted in my life

So as roots mature the flavor improves, for at least some species.

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#5

Very nice reportā€¦!! You are on to an important factor in that you mentioned water. A water deficit will greatly improve the flavor of most stone fruits. Iā€™d think thatā€™s also involved in the improved taste of Washington navel. The same thing happens with figs as the tree matures. A mature tree is less vigorous and can sustain a larger water deficit. The top gets bigger but the roots arenā€™t finding more water.

A refractometer could put some numbers to your flavor ratings. Higher brix, sugar, is clearly related to better flavor for most people.

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#6

This is super helpful! We are debating adding an apricot to our truthfully already packed yard. Weā€™re not far away in Poway so you saved me a ton of reasearch. Thank you!!!

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#7

Perhaps the general public, but many of my fruit growing colleagues will opt for flavor over brix.

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#8

It is not flavor or brix. The flavor improves with higher brix. That doesnā€™t change whether itā€™s a high acid fruit or the low acid nectarines that I like. In fact the low acid donā€™t have good flavor unless the brix is high.

Get the brix up to 25-32 and almost any stone fruit has great flavor.

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#9

Not in my experience.

#10

How much 25+ brix stone fruit have you grown? Havenā€™t seen you reporting numbers.

#11

Among other things Iā€™m a double-blind tester for ANR.

#12

What is ANR?

#13

https://ucanr.edu/

#14

Iā€™m used to people on this forum talking up some esoteric cultivar no one ever heard of before.

#15

Okay, well then just for you I will bring up the Bonny Royal, which is sold at Andyā€™s Orchard in Morgan Hill every June, is earlier than Blenheim, tastes great (more intense than Blenheim, would make a great crisp - canā€™t say it is better but it is probably more intense), and fruits heavily every year (he always has it, even in bad year). I suspect it might be low chill based on the consistency of cropping there. It was started by George Bonacich who reportedly reached out beyond the European narrow gene pool in his breeding. Bonny Royal splits very badly most years and I do not think it was a commercial success. I have never grown it but I think this should be sold in So Cal nurseries instead of the dreadful Katie.

#16

The chill requirements are too high for many southern California coastal areas.

This summer I learned that the Apricot Capital of the World is in China.

#17

I thought Turkey was the number one apricot (and hazelnut) producer in the world, so I did a quick google search and found this link which corroborated my knowledge :slight_smile:.

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#18

ā€¦ but not the Apricot breeding capital of the world.

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#19

Iā€™ve had Tropic Gold planted for a few years and am still waiting for my first fruit. Hoping this is the year. I had a graft that I think was Tomcot and it was amazing but alas, that tree got removed.

#20

Looks like researchers asked the same question I did, what cultivars would do well in low chill inland southern California? They only tested 6 varieties in this study. Here is what Craig Ledbetter, a man who dedicated his lifeā€™s work to innovations with apricots, concludes:

ā€œonly ā€˜Blenheimā€™ could be recommended for non-commercial planting in environments having chill accumulations similar to Riverside, CAā€

Source: Evaluating apricots in riverside, California: identifying productive cultivars for a low-chill environment

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