I was able to get a crop of Tomcot this far. I netted the tree last night and set a squirrel trap right next to it. I broke one off while putting the net on and it was definitely not ripe, but still delicious with the accentuated aprioct taste.
9 Likes
How easy is the Surround to wash off on the apricots?
The Tomcot that I grafted on last year really took off and produced abundant flowers but they all dropped. I thought it might have been the frost but two separate apricot trees in my neighborhood have tons of fruit. Maybe its just too young.
I’m sure I didn’t get it all off with a scrub, but close enough for an organic apricot. This is the tree’s 2nd year with no pollinator. I counted 41 of them, greedy me hoping to get them all.
Better luck on your tree next year.
1 Like
It is not that easy to wash off Surround but since my fruit are for my own consumption so I scrubbed them a little harder. I ate them with little traces of Surround.
1 Like
This year, after removing 7-8 varieties of apricots, my Orangered has only a small graft of Florilege to help with cross pollination. Orangered flowered abundantly, set only 8 fruit.
Having other varieties will definitely help with cross pollination.
1 Like
Thats exciting!! They look great!
1 Like
That’s great. Tomcot is partial self-fruitful. Before I removed my multi grafted tree, Tomcot often produced more fruit than other varieties.
For my zone, another reason I like about it is that it has a long blooming period which helps some flowers survive late freeze. I prefer the taste of Orangered a bit more than Tomcot but that is my personal preference.
2 Likes
Where I was raised in S. CA, most, if not all apricots, are self fruitful and here in NY they tend to be partially so. It seems that the trees behave differently in warm springs with ample blue-sky days. Same goes for pears.
Incidentally, so far, and after having harvested a hundred+ Early Blush, with Tomcot, Alfred (huge crop) and Sugar Pearls coming, they are all fine without any insecticide or Surround. Alfred got a second app of Indar, but the rest only one around May 14th. The Tomcots are badly damaged by scab, so in the future it will need a later app of Indar, but probably only one. Sugar Pearls is right next to it and the few fruit on it (Tomcot is more mature and heavily laden) have no scab. I’d never even seen scab on cots before,- big, disgusting, indented black spots. I thought it was the more superficial spotting I tend to get on Alfred that is mostly cosmetic damage.
Last year the late hard frost eliminated my crop except for about 5 Tomcots, which received no spray at all. They were pristine.
These are all very informal espaliers trained against a white wall (east and south) which is the only way I can seem to make apricots productive on my property. Best experiment I ever tried. However, I think cots may fruit too early for plum curc to make use of them. Anyone have experience to counter that in the northeast?
3 Likes
That is impressive! My backyard apricots got nailed by the curc this year and I lost 80%. Nothing else got much curc damage (other than one nectarine)… it is as if the curc just parked on the cots and blasted away.
My (few) Tomcots are ripening now, they are excellent! I am also getting Ilona’s which are also fantastic. I have several other cots from that breeding program and I can see why they released Ilona, it is by far the most productive of my apricots, and on top of that it is as tasty as the very best. The other ones I was trialing were either less tasty or less productive.
4 Likes
As you can see, I did spray surround on apricots, plums and peaches. I saw some PC marks on the Methley plums, but haven’t seen any on the peaches or apricots. Actually there are no marks whatsoever on the apricots. I had the most PC damage on Hosui Asian Pear.
Last year the PC destroyed a lot of Stanley plums, this year the Stanleys were destroyed by aphids or possibly the horticultural spray I used.
I got the idea of trying no insecticide because last year one of my clients asked me not to spray his cherries with the second insecticide spray because they’d be ripe in 3 weeks or so. It worked out fine so I figured it was because it was an early fruit. Understand- all the orchards I manage don’t get their first synth spray until last apples have lost their petals, which means that cots and J. plums are left unprotected for a long time and have never suffered for it (many sites, many seasons_. Only E. plums get some PC damage most years, some sites, but when they set a good crop, not enough to matter.
While I figured you might get another generation of PC than what we get up here, I’m surprised that it seems to occur early rather than later.
And here is the crop. They were falling off the tree, ready to go. Not the greatest fruit I grow. Was nice to have some tree fruit this early. Was able to get plums from local orchard and kids preferred those.
3 Likes
Cook a few of them into a mush in the microwave after adding a teaspoon or 2 of sugar and break up some Walkers or other butter cookies over the top and I bet your kids will like that more than the plums. Cots make the best of sauces for deserts and the ones off your tree will have more flavor than store bought.
Tomcot is not my sweetest cot and Orangered is better in its season. Alfred is much smaller and later but significantly sweeter.
5 Likes
Thanks Alan, We have moved on to plums and white peaches from local orchard. If I get any Tomcots next year, I’m going to pick them a little earlier, maybe that will prevent them from being too mushy.
I do have a first year OrangeRed that is growing well, so better luck next year.