My four year old Tlor-Tsiran Apricot finally fruited! Where i am at we are a once every seven years apricot and this one has withstood extremely low temperatures and many snows. So far its still hanging onto the fruits. I had planned on grafting extra pollinators onto it as I have read many reports of it not setting fruit and while i believe its pollinators would be a Thundercloud plum and a eastern (asia) apricot, I could not find any thunderclouds in bloom near me although i know they are several landscaping trees within a mile of me (strange year with bloom syncing) I know of no other apricots within a mile of me.
However it has a excellent fragrance and always is one of my first to blossom and i saw bees fly directly from it to my superior plum and so on (The only pollination partner i can identify) which usually means they are pollen compatible. I hope this information helps others get there’s to set fruit! It maybe has 50 fruitlets on the whole tree and i was wondering what the best way to protect these (many are high up) from birds and squirrels?
That is so exciting. We just planted 3. We are a USDA zone 6A. We also have 2 Shaa-Kar-Pareehs. Got them as 3 year old trees - planted last year in our unheated high tunnel. Lots of growth over the early spring and lots of flowers. No apparent fruit yet.
Tlor-Tsiran is P. x dasycarpa — a naturally occurring hybrid of apricot, P. armeniaca, and myroblan plum, P. cerasifera. Another example of P. x dasycarpa is Mesch Mesch Amrah. They should be graftable on apricot, myrobalan and, likely, most Asian plums.
I am growing 4 varieties of those hybrids (P. x dasycarpa — a naturally occurring hybrid of apricot, P. armeniaca, and myroblan plum, P. cerasifera).
The varieties I grow originated from italy. There they are called Biricoccolo. The varieties are Vesuviano, Nostrano, Gigante di Budrio and Bolognese. I had no chance to try the fruit yet. But from another grower I know the fruit are a little fuzzy like an apricot. When ripe they resemble a plum in taste and appearance. They are early bloomers like myrobalane and therefore at risk to get frozen out by late freezes as happened to my trees this year.
The last time I looked there where 3 fruit in total… They are a little fuzzy. If they last until ripe I will post a foto.
As stan says they should be graft compatible with most plums and apricots. My trees are grafted onto St. Julien A. The mentioned italien varieties can also be propagated by cuttings. In my experiments they rooted fairly easy (as did Flavor Supreme and Flavor King). I tried to use one of those rooted cuttings as a rootstock for an apricot by budding. The graft grew well last year but this spring the tree seems to have died. It might be an incompatability issue or the roots died for some reason. We had a mild winter, so I would rule out winter damage. I will wait a little longer to see if it resprouts. If not I will plant an apricot there. That tree was meant to be part of a stone fruit espalier I try to do. So I need to replace it soon or there will be an empty space in that espalier for some time…
What i did see was bees flying from one tree directly to another which means the bees believe it to be pollen compatible. While there could definitely be more apricot trees or j plums that overlapped bloom with it, this year it did not seem to overlap with thundercloud ornamental plums. This year both my superior plum and tlor tsiran apricot set fruit and survived freezing conditions and alot of hail. It went through several very bad hail storms that wiped out my first and second set of tomato and pepper plants and it like most of my peaches have hail damage on the fruit. While it has seemed behind superior plum it started coloring three days ago and superior has just started to take on color today. For a timeframe montmorency cherry for me was ready about three weeks ago.
This is exciting lol I do hope you post pictures and a review of the fruit! So Superior is also a pollinator - or were you just commenting on its hail resistance?
I am as sure as I am able to be that Superior J plum and tlor tsiran apricot both pollinated each other. While i would say neither seems hail resistant i would say both are very frost resistant.
So a extremely early Tlor-Tsiran Apricot next to a similarly non ripe Superior j plum. Most of the j plums are double that size or more while this seems to be a common size for the apricot. These ones were very close to the ground and i did not feel my dog would have had enough time to get the squirrel before the squirrel got the fruit.
I have eaten two that i ripened on the counter. This one seemed to have a worm hole in it and was more ripe I did not see any worm in it nor do i know of any that eat on apricots around here so maybe it was a long billed bird peck?
Anyways they are delicious with a very rich apricot flavor being ahead of sweet and they are mildly juicy for a apricot.
