GR: Read an article in Goodfruit Grower this yr about apricots in the Patterson CA area. The President of the CA Apricot Growers Assc. was bemoaning the loss of the Patterson variety. I'm sure you know the variety much better than I. But my experience of Patterson is very bad. Sure it stores for weeks but it never gets sweet no matter how long you leave it on the tree. It is the reason CA dried apricots are never sweet and rank a distant 2nd to Turkish. Had too think about all the times I suckered on buying CA dried or fresh apricots. And it made me mad. Mr Apricot President has his head stuck in his a--!!! The article did go on to say that apricot growers in that area are changing varieties. About time!! They deserve to go broke if they don't!! So, what varieties are really good quality there? And why aren't you sending us more of the other high quailty fruits like Flavor Grenade pluot?? The Fruitnut

Fruitnut, I wrote a response to your last question on underwatered nectarines, but I guess it didn't get through the system. I'm familiar with the underwatering symptoms you have specified. I've had that problem, too. But I'm talking about fruit which looks damaged even before the blossoms wither. The thread which discusses thrips is linked below. I think you're right about overwatering. But after cherry season, I think the best commercial stone fruits in our area are the new supersweet nectarines, until later in the season when there are a few good varieties of commercial plums. Update on CWB, Peachcot, etc: This year, I got normal bloom on my Canadian White Blenheim. I think our area doesn't get enough chill some years. But I still had delayed foliation on Stark Sweetheart. So I guess CWB doesn't have the highest chill requirement in the world. I also had some other varieties with some bloom during CWB's late bloom season. But the rain during bloom seemed to decimate the crop. I didn't get any Harcot fruit this year. I thought I had a few young fruits, but next time I looked, there was nothing. Not even fallen fruits. It's always been a reliable variety for me before. Don't know if it was blossom blight or our freak wind storms this year. Or maybe our Garden Partner ate them. It's also odd that I got a decent crop of Blenheim during the same rainy bloom season. It's notorious for blossom blight. Maybe it's just luck - the days when bloom is heaviest vs. days when it rains. I only got 3 or 4 CWB fruits on 2 trees. I ate the first one today. It had fallen off the tree. It was much sweeter than Blenheim, with a rich flavor different from the typical apricot. Refreshing rather than "sprightly", though it still had a touch of acid. I think that this is the first one I've tasted which didn't get too much water while ripening. The texture was soft, but pleasant. The color is a creamy yellow-orange - not really close to white. No red blush. I would recommend CWB for areas with just a little more winter chill than ours. It needs a pollenizer which blooms late. It's a sweet pit variety. We've also been getting fruit from a tree which is either a Peachcot or a Golden Amber. The Golden Amber near the house has died. It never did well in its location. I bought the tree I now have as a Peachcot, but later learned that this was about the time the USDA mislabeled Peachcot scions which went to wholesaler LE Cooke in a virus elimination program. The next year, trees they sold as Peachcots were really Golden Amber. If you have one of their Peachcots which is older than 10 years old, you probably have their original strain. Peachcot trees sold after the error was corrected are probably a USDA stock variety, as far as I know. There's a nursery in Texas which sells an August-fruiting Peachcot with a low chill requirement. That idea always intrigued me. Anyway, I am not quite sure if I have a Peachcot now or a Golden Amber. Both my defunct Golden Amber and the alleged Peachcot bloom over a long season. Fruiting is more prolonged than with most other apricots. Last year, I was pretty confident my "Peachcot" was Golden Amber. But this year, the flavor of the ripe fruit makes me think it might be a Peachcot, after all. The very ripe fruits are quite large, very sweet and very soft, but with a melting quality rather than a grainy or mushy quality like, say, Royalty. And it may be my imagination, but I thought I tasted some peach with the apricot. Very nice. The tree is susceptible to premature fruit drop. It's not growing in the best soil. Though it has prolonged bloom, I don't recall any signs of delayed foliation here, so it's probably suitable for areas with moderately low chill. The fruits on my little volunteer apricot tree are almost ripe. I think I did fairly well in the volunteer fruit lottery. When almost ripe, the fruit is small, highly colored with a red blush, firm - crispy to rubbery, sweet and quite tasty. Freestone. Fuzz is very scant and some of the fruits got sun damage - ugly brown patches on the sun-exposed side. I think it may the the offspring of a commercial variety. The tree is brushy with lots of short branches off the main branches which resemble long thorns, though they're not really sharp. Branches are lax. Just one example of what you can get from planting an apricot seed. I'm getting my first Santa Rosa plums. A ripe Santa Rosa really lets you know you're alive. Sweet and sour with a variety of intense flavors coming from each layer inside the fruit. The Weeping Santa Rosa is sweeter with very nice flavor, but eating a regular Santa Rosa is still a unique experience which I really like. We have too many, though. Time to call my husband's sister, who makes jam. Here is a link that might be useful: nectarines and thrips

Hello, I am new to this forum (and relatively new to growing fruit trees too! :-) I will plant some more fruit trees this winter and would love to have a golden sweet apricot. How did you manage to get one? I live in San Jose, CA) so I can always drive to Burchell nursery but on their website they state that they sell to commercial growers only. Thank you very much!

Thanks Scott, as usual that is a lot of good information to mull over. In my greenhouse with no diseases Robada is the largest apricot and along with Orangered the best tasting. I'd say we agree pretty closely on what tastes good. As I also like Tomcot. My other favorites are Tasty Rich very early and Goldensweet towards the tail end. Thanks for all the good leads on new material.