Nice looking, too bad about the taste. I remember there was a lot of hype about these things years back. My Tomcots aren't even changing color yet. Just sitting there looking stupid. The peaches are almost the same size... The "MonsterCots" from the grocery store here are excellent and huge.

They look good. You should sell them to a grocery store.

I've only got sour cherries and wild raspberries so far but both have been good and early here.

Olpea, thats too bad. Mine have not ripened yet but I will follow up here when they do. I'm surprised you are ahead of me, I had thought my season was earlier than KS. My Tomcots are starting to turn color now but the Jerseycots are still green so they must have a couple weeks to go.

Scott

I would have also thought MD being on the ocean, would be ahead of KS.

According to my records, Jerseycot first bloom was on 4/1 this year. We have had some hot weather along the way, but it doesn't seem like anything out of the ordinary.

Apricots are a bit of a mystery. Same varieties will be dry on one site and juicy on another for reasons I'm unable to decipher. It is the key factor to cot quality- juicy or dry.

I haven't tried Jerseycot yet but one of their varieties, Earlyblush, seems to be a real winner here although it's too soon for me to be sure. It ripens right after mid-season cherries well before any other cots I grow.

Seems early for your zone. My Early Golden Apricots are still growing pits, no color except some blush. How were the Jerseycots last season.

Those are pretty looking apricots. Too bad they aren't good eating. A few dryland, no irrigation, seedling apricot trees around town here are getting ripe and I'd call them soft and mealy. But we've only had about 2-3 inches rain this year and high temps have been near 100F.

Soft and mealy isn't something I've had to deal with in the greenhouse. Sometimes mine haven't been quite sweet enough to suit me. This year so far I've gone though about 10 varieties and they have all been very juicy and sweet. I don't get fruit that is soft and mealy so don't know what else to say.

Can you make good preserves with them?

Robert

Ace,

I've had this tree since 2006, and although it's bloomed several times, they've always been froze out. Apricots seem to bloom here from the middle of March to about the beginning of April. Our last frost is generally toward the beginning of April, so apricots aren't a good fit for this area.

Here lately, I've been trying to plant later blooming cots. I've heard Tomcot is somewhat more reliable. I have one, and it has some fruit this year. I also have Harglow and Sugar Pearl, both of which are supposed to bloom later. But I'm starting to get suspicious that they bloom right along with the earlier ones. Sugar Pearl has bloomed for several years and always blooms along with Jerseycot - Early.

This is the first year Tomcot, Harglow, and Harlayne bloomed, and they bloomed only a day later than Jerseycot. However, it wasn't a fair year this year. Because of the weird weather, nearly everything bloomed close together.

Still, I've had enough experience with Jerseycot and Sugar Pearl to know they aren't reliable here.

I don't know what the normal bloom to harvest days are for Jerseycot, but it's supposed to be an earlier maturing cot.

Robert,

I made jam with them. The jam is acceptable. It's a little tart, but that's my fault. Last year I had some problems with some low sugar peach jam discoloring a little after several months of storage. So for this batch of apricot jam, I added some ascorbic acid as a preservative. I think I added too much and it's a bit tarter than I like, but still good.

Olpea, I also found that nearly all apricots bloom at the same time and I don't trust any pronouncements about later bloom. The only exceptions I have are some white apricots; Zard in particular is about a week later, and one other whose name I forget now is also a week later. A week is not a whole lot of time but I would think Zard may be worth checking out. I am going to get my first harvest on it this year.

We had an odd spring, it first first much hotter than it was much cooler than usual. Overall we are still a bit ahead of our normal year.

Scott

Harglow does bloom about 3 days later than other in the Har series here. Not enough to often matter, but sometime your bound to get lucky with it.

Olpea I reread your original post. You said this is the first bearing year on the Jerseycot tree. The photo shows a lot of Apricots for the first season. Were there too many fruit on the tree to get good flavor. The other fruit still on will get better flavor.

Those apricots don't look ripe to me.

Where does one purchase a Zard apricot tree?

The hard, sour apricots I buy at the grocery store transform into excellent jam, so I am sure that yours will do the same! Or maybe fruit leather if you have a good dehydrator. Mixing in sugar and slow cooking fruit has a way of making it taste magically delicious.

Oregon Woodsmoke, Zard is not sold in nurseries. If you know how to graft there are several places you can get scionwood.

Scott

PS I found my notes of which apricots are later .. Canadian White Blenheim, Zard, and Shekar Pareh. Everything else is a week earlier.

Scott

Hman & Scott,

Thanks for the heads up about the later blooming apricots that really aren't later blooming.

Maybe I'll try Zard at a later date. A weeks bloom can make quite a difference.

Ace,

Although this is the first year it produced apricots, it's grown and bloomed for several years, so it's not a real small tree. I think I had the tree thinned properly, but maybe not. Left a fruit about every 4-6 inches.

Peaches need thirty five leaves to ripen a fruit. Cherries need 2 leaves per fruit. I'm assume apricots are somewhere in between. Anyone know how many leaves it takes to ripen a cot?

Oregonwoods,

Your right that some of the apricots in the pic show a slight bit of green. However, when I went out to pick the tree, I just pretty much picked the whole thing. I'd already tried about four ripe ones and they were yucky so I decided to pick the whole thing to have enough to make jam. The tree dropped one ripe apricot the day before, and dropped about 4 more the next day, before I picked. I tried some drops as well as some on the tree that were soft and fully orange. They were all mealy.

As Hman mentioned, it's probably just a fluke year, and they may be better here in another year. I'm sure they're good sometimes or Rutgers wouldn't have released it. But I don't really have much use for an extra early apricot that only produces once every three or four years. The apparently hit and miss quality of the fruit ensures that this tree is headed for the guillotine.

At any rate, thanks for the heads up. My apricots are my favorites, and I sure don't need to waste space on one that is mealy.

I've got a Royal Blenheim and a Moorpark. The Royal Blenheim blooms about 10 days earlier than the Moorpark. But I don't know whether that means the Moorpark is a later bloomer or maybe that the Royal Blenheim is an early bloomer.

At any rate, 10 days can make a huge difference in my area.

It's nice, too, to have the fruit ripen a couple of weeks apart. It spreads out the apricot season.

I've got to learn how to graft. I want one of those Zard trees.

Olpea, I don't think the lack of thinning is the issue. I underthin all my stone fruits and they still taste great. Its only when they are totally packed in there that the flavor starts to decline; the main penalty you pay for under-thinning is smaller fruits. On many fruit types I can't detect any flavor loss at all, even when completely unthinned. In fact on some fruits the smaller ones are better because there is more skin per volume and a key flavor component is in the skin. For example, most apples with a "nutty" flavor (Ashmeads, Margil, etc) get it from the skin.

Oregonwoodsmoke, I am interested in the new experimental Orus blackberries you have and would gladly trade you tip rootings of them for a grafted Zard from me. I have been doing a big test of western blackberries to see which ones are hardy here, and some of the newest releases are not widely available. Send me an email if interested, its on my page.

Scott

email sent.

Scott:

Thank you for your take on thinning. I left a heavier crop on my stone fruit this year and so far the results are favorable. As always I hold your opinion in highest regard.

The best cots I ever had by far came off a horrid looking little tree growing on a railway embankment in Glenwood Springs, CO decades ago. There were only about a dozen fruit but they were all absolutely delicious and juicy. Been spoiled ever since.

Olpea: sorry to hear about the cots. Thanks for the reminder to check both neighbors' trees.