Various types of apricots

People love apricots. This sweet and refreshing fruit is great for hot summer days. If you love apricots as much as we do, read on and we shall tell you what makes apricots such a popular delicacy.

The origin of apricots goes back to China to the reign of the Emperor Yu, but apricots were also very popular in India. During the long history of apricots people were able to breed dozens of varieties. Apricots ripen gradually, which allows you to process fruit gradually over a pretty long time, basically from spring to mid-summer.

How to grow apricots

Growing apricots is a bit more difficult than growing other fruit trees. The tree requires a cooler weather to “get ready” to produce fruit, but at the same time it is very sensitive to spring frost, which easily kills flowers. Apricots also need a pretty warm weather to ripe properly and to make things worse, apricots are very susceptible to fungal diseases.

You should prune at the end of summer or at the beginning of autumn, which is usually still warm enough. In addition to branch removal, you need to prune fruit too each year. Unfortunately, this interrupts the cycle of Mother Nature and you have a big harvest one year and the next year you get almost nothing.

Photo: Pixabay

Most common varieties

Poppicot

• Poppicot is a variety with nice and sweet flesh and a bit sour skin. When harvested at the right time, it has a truly distinctive and typical apricot flavour.

Caty

• You can easily recognize this type thanks to its size and ovoid shape. Unfortunately, this variety has a big disadvantage. Fruit tends to crack after rain. However, it provides intense flavour and many people grow this variety because of its strong taste.

Castlebrite

• Fruit is medium-sized and quite sweet. This variety is rather resilient and great for making jams. Mainly thanks to its original taste. The fruit ripens slowly and does not tend to fall off from branches.
• The disadvantage is that flowers tend to get mould easily and the fruit easily succumbs to brown rot

Goldrich

• This variety is very popular mainly thanks to its deep colour. The fruit is dark orange and the taste is pleasantly sour. If you let it ripen longer, the sour taste will become sweeter. Goldrich is great fresh or for making jams.

Trees are strong and usually grafted onto a plum or peach rootstock. With proper care, it will grow into a beautiful, powerful tree that produces many pinkish and white flowers every year.

Source: https://growgreatfruit.com/why-we-love-apricot-trees/

Preview photo: Pixabay