Well this certainly surprised me. 3 years ago I had grafted Apache onto my Tropic Gold Tree. I was very surprised in April to see that the Apache branch was loaded with fruit, even more than Tropic Gold. Today I was walking in my orchard and noticed I saw orange on a branch.
The Apache apricot had 3 fruit that were ripe and ready to eat and I ate them. A dozen others are almost ready. Here are my observationst:
Apache is by far the earliest fruiting of my apricots. This is a late year. Royal Rosa, which is normally ready in mid-May, is rock hard and green. I suspect Apache might be a late April variety in a typical warm year (or, since it is higher chill variety, perhaps no fruit, we will see)
Flavor was very good. It is described as subacid by some, and perhaps I picked mine early but it was balanced. It was very sweet, though not as good as Blenheim, but good enough that for how early it is, you donāt care. In my opinion this is the best early apricot I have ever tasted (early ones usually are not very good).
The flesh is firmer, and the color is more red, both expected findings in a modern commercial variety.
I would not have grafted this if I had read the article that proved it a failure in Inland Southern California. I actually almost pruned it off after reading it. Glad I didnāt. For me this is a good argument for testing things for yourself. Perhaps this year is an off year but I am planning on keeping a good branch of it every year.
4 days after Apache the first of my grafts of Nicole ripened up. It was still a little early but we tried it anyway. First, to give you an idea how good these two varieties are, my kids are rather picky about fruit (they get excited about the color of Costco fruit, then take one bite and refuse to eat any further). But they actually stripped clean the Apache grafts in 4 days even though they were not all fully ripe. I caught my 3 year old taking the last one and I scolded him that they were not ready and he said āno, it rop wahā (āit was a ripe oneā). It was not a ripe one, they went ācrunchā but he didnāt care because he knew he was competing with his brothers and his father.
Nicole was even better than Apache. Very sweet. Outstanding aroma. Just enough sharpness to keep it interesting. Other features: red on top where sun exposed. Not dry at all. Kernal was small but not as small as Apache. Overall I would rate Apache B+ to A- and Nicole A- but I probably should taste more fruit.
My oldest son and I this time decided not to tell the 3 year old lest he pick them all before they are ripe. I will graft a branch of Nicole on every apricot tree I have. It is supposed to be high chill and I suspect I will not get fruit every year but this is definitely worth trying.
I agree with you about Tropic Gold and Blenheim: I think they are the same. There is nothing that distinguishes these two in my yard, and I have very low chill, being 3 miles from the beach in Ventura.
The other consistent producers for me are Goldkist and Flavor Delight aprium, which to me seems to be all apricot traits and no plum traits. I have to clarify that āconsistentā in my case means they make at least a few fruits every year, regardless of whether it was a good or bad year for chill hours.
About 200 chill hours on average from what I can tell. Iām hedging because my cheapo weather station doesnāt keep a log, and the Wunderground stations near me donāt seem to agree with the microclimate of my yard. I get more than the Oxnard station that the UC Davis chill hour calculator uses and less than the Camarilo station.
But it is quite variable year to year, and it seems like the timing of the chill is more important than the final number at the end of February. Having a cold December with no or few Santa Anas is much better than a warm December and a cold February.
Iād add that stone fruit varieties that are said to require 200 or fewer chill hours tend to bloom and set well; and ones that are listed at 400 chill hours are pretty sporadic.
When I lived in S. CA, no one knew the names of varieties in peopleās yards. We had one a few miles up from the coast in Topanga canyon that was my entry drug into tree-fruit addiction. It was planted before we moved into the house in '63 and took off when a grey water pipe sprung a leak near its base. The tree was still thriving and producing delicious fruit the last time I saw it in about 2013.`
There were also neglected trees on the other side of the PC highway at the base of the canyon just a few blocks from the beach. They always produced delicious fruit without any apparent care.
Maybe Blenheims were standard issue in the region at that time- Iāve no idea. I just assumed all tree ripened apricots were absolutely delicious.
Thanks for the info. I took a chance on Royal Rosa before I saw this post in low chill Glendale AZ. 250-300 so I can have an earlier producer for apricots. I started with Katy 3 years ago and I loved it so I planted Blenheim and Gold Kist a year ago and am planting The Royal Rosa, Tropic Gold and another Royal I got for $7 on clearance. What are your chill hrs?
Here are some photos from my apricot bloom this year, with captions to interpret. The first to bloom was my Blenheim tree. One side had mature wood that did not grow much and that has already fruited. The other side is in bloom. I believe that mature wood flowers at the ānormalā time and sometimes the more fresh growth from later in the year will bloom a bit later. Another person on this forum told me to expect that.
Nicole is about to bloom now. I have a number of small grafts. They are all in bud swell at the same time. I like Nicole because it looks totally dormant with its smooth red bark and tiny buds and you begin to wonder when it will start getting ready for spring, and then it will suddenly bud swell at once. All my grafts are showing this. I believe this is a low chill variety. My limited experience with small grafts of it has yielded fruit every year so far.
Bonny Royal is similar to Nicole in terms of showing promise of low chill. I have only had grafts for a couple years but it seems to fruit reliably so far, and interestingly across the entire grafts. Itās fruiting branches are like plums, where even a little droopy twig will bear fruit. Across several different grafts, it is bud swelling evenly. To me this is consistent with low chill but time will tell. It seems to know exactly what time of year it is across several different trees with no āchill confusion.ā This tree is the most vigorous apricot I have ever heard of. Every graft, every tree just explodes with growth.
When I share my success with apricots people ask me if I have some secret microclimate in Rancho Bernardo. I grow bananas (flavor not that good so far though) and reliably fruit avocados with minimal frost damage once a year or so, like everyone around here. So maybe a little but we really are low chill. Just to share that I too experience inadequate chill I could share my Moorpark photos. It is too soon for that though because plants have their expected photoperiod. A late bloomer canāt be called high chill automatically for that reason alone. Moorpark does happen to be both a late bloomer and high chill though.
A good example of inadequate chill in an early bloomer is Apache. This photo does not show it perfectly but some twigs are totally bare and another has a blossom already. Apache requires a pollinator so I will hand pollinate the scattered bloom I get from it. I did get great fruiting a few years ago so it is not a failure but most years my test branch gets nothing. Craig Ledbetter studied it in Riverside (same climate) and it did not fruit reliably.
I did not realize those are spurs too. On cherries, apples, and apricots that I grow, spurs are 90 degrees out and only 1-2 inches long. At any rate, on Bonny Royal these things are about 6-8 inches long and drooping. Really cool to see how different they are. My trees are too young to know if they also do the traditional short 90 degree spurs.
The original breeder used varieties from central asia and they must have some plum traits.
Also, the growth is more plum-like. Plums are very vigorous and aggressive and Bonny Royal acts like a plum in that regard too. But otherwise everything looks exactly like an apricot. And I did not notice anything plum like in the taste, other than that the flavor is both sharp and sweet.
May be I am wrong, I have to see them. Trees some times behave in strange ways. One of my nectarine trees one year produced a lot of small branches, similar to what you describe for Bonnie Royal, and I was concerned that those small branches will not be able to carry the heavy fruits. Those small branches were 2-4ā long, and I was asking myself: are these spurs? Of course nectarine trees are not known to produce spurs, but I thought may be there is some stress factor that caused that tree to behave in that way. I had another tree of the same variety and it was behaving like a normal nectarine tree.
By the way, this Bonnie Royal seems an interesting variety. Is it the same as Bonnie Apricot that Dave Wilson sells to commercial growers?
Letās see what it does over time. You definitely have more experience in plums/pluots than me, and your comments help me make sense of the differences among my plums (Flavor Punch pluerry has tons of those spurs you describe)
On the internet Bonny Royal gets confused with Bonny apricot by one fruit seller (specialty produce) but they are not the same.
Bonny Royal is covered here:
That write-up makes me eager to try his other varieties, like Ruby Royal. But I heard George Bonacich sold his apricot orchard and it got converted to almonds. I canāt remember where I heard that but he would be 91.
Bonny Royal definitely cracks and splits by the way. It is the Snow Queen of apricots - great flavor but has that flaw.
