Apricot

Preparing apricots in the grounds of Alchi Monastery, Ladakh, India

David Packard's apricot orchard in Los Altos Hills, preserved by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, is one of the few remaining in Santa Clara County, where apricots were a major crop before the urban sprawl of Silicon Valley.

A 2019 genetic study concludes that apricots were independently domesticated three times, twice in Central Asia and once in China, with extensive cross pollination between wild and domesticated species across Eurasia.[6]

The origin of the apricot is disputed; it was known in Armenia during ancient times, and has been cultivated there for so long that it is often thought to have originated there.[7] An archaeological excavation at Garni in Armenia found apricot seeds in a Chalcolithic-era site.[8] Its scientific name Prunus armeniaca (Armenian plum) derives from that assumption. For example, the Belgian arborist Baron de Poerderlé, writing in the 1770s, asserted, "Cet arbre tire son nom de l'Arménie, province d'Asie, d'où il est originaire et d'où il fut porté en Europe ..." ("this tree takes its name from Armenia, province of Asia, where it is native, and whence it was brought to Europe ...").[9]A large variety of apricots, around 50, are grown in Armenia today.[7]

According to the Soviet botanist Nikolai Vavilov, its center of origin would be the Chinese region, where the domestication of the apricot would have taken place. Apricot has been grown in China since 1000 BC.[10] Beginning in about 7th century apricots in China have been preserved by various methods including salting and smoking and the more common drying. Hubei is noted for its black smoked apricots.[11]

Other sources say that the apricot was first cultivated in India in about 3000 BC.[12]

Its introduction to Greece is attributed to Alexander the Great.[12] Subsequent sources were often confused about the origin of the species. John Claudius Loudon (1838) believed it had a wide native range including Armenia, the Caucasus, the Himalayas, China, and Japan.[13]

Apricots have been cultivated in Persia since antiquity, and dried ones were an important commodity on Persian trade routes. Apricots remain an important fruit in modern-day Iran.

Egyptians usually dry apricots, add sweetener, and then use them to make a drink called amar al-dīn.

In England during the 17th century, apricot oil was used in herbalism treatments intended to act against tumors, swelling, and ulcers.[14]

In the 17th century, English settlers brought the apricot to the English colonies in the New World. Most of modern American production of apricots comes from the seedlings carried to the west coast by Spanish missionaries. Almost all U.S. commercial production is in California, with some in Washington and Utah.[15]

Dried apricot fruits

Apricots have a chilling requirement of 300 to 900 chilling units. A dry climate is good for fruit maturation. The tree is slightly more cold-hardy than the peach, tolerating winter temperatures as cold as −30 °C (−22 °F) or lower if healthy. They are hardy in USDA zones 5 through 8. A limiting factor in apricot culture is spring frosts: They tend to flower very early (in early March in western Europe), meaning spring frost can kill the flowers. Furthermore, the trees are sensitive to temperature changes during the winter season. In China, winters can be very cold, but temperatures tend to be more stable than in Europe and especially North America, where large temperature swings can occur in winter. Hybridisation with the closely related Prunus sibirica (Siberian apricot; hardy to −50 °C (−58 °F) but with less palatable fruit) offers options for breeding more cold-tolerant plants.[16] They prefer well-drained soils with a pH of 6.0 to 7.0.

Apricot cultivars are usually grafted onto plum or peach rootstocks. The cultivar scion provides the fruit characteristics, such as flavour and size, but the rootstock provides the growth characteristics of the plant. Some of the more popular US apricot cultivars are 'Blenheim', 'Wenatchee Moorpark', 'Tilton', and 'Perfection'. Some apricot cultivars are self-compatible and do not require pollinizer trees; others are not: 'Moongold' and 'Sungold', for example, must be planted in pairs so that they can pollinate each other.

Hybridisors have created what is known as a "black apricot" or "purple apricot", (Prunus dasycarpa), a hybrid of an apricot and the cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera). Other apricot–plum hybrids are variously called plumcots, apriplums, pluots, or apriums.

Apricot production (tonnes)
Country	2017
Turkey	985,000
Uzbekistan	532,565
Italy	266,372
Algeria	256,890
Iran	239,712
World	4,257,241
Source: FAOSTAT, United Nations[17]

Apricots are susceptible to various diseases whose relative importance is different in the major production regions as a consequence of their climatic differences. For example, hot weather as experienced in California's Central Valley will often cause pit burn, a condition of soft and brown fruit around the pit.[18] Bacterial diseases include bacterial spot and crown gall. Fungal diseases include brown rot caused by Monilinia fructicola: infection of the blossom by rainfall leads to "blossom wilt"[19] whereby the blossoms and young shoots turn brown and die; the twigs die back in a severe attack; brown rot of the fruit is due to Monilinia infection later in the season. Dieback of branches in the summer is attributed to the fungus Eutypa lata, where examination of the base of the dead branch will reveal a canker surrounding a pruning wound.[20] Other fungal diseases are black knot, Alternaria spot and fruit rot, and powdery mildew.[21] Unlike peaches, apricots are not affected by leaf curl, and bacterial canker (causing sunken patches in the bark which then spread and kill the affected branch or tree) and silver leaf are not serious threats, which means that pruning in late winter is considered safe.[19]

Dried apricots are a type of traditional dried fruit. The world's largest producer of dried apricots is Turkey.[22] When treated with sulfur dioxide (E220), the color is vivid orange. Organic fruit not treated with sulfur dioxide is darker in color and has a coarser texture. When apricots are dried, the relative concentration of nutrients is increased, with vitamin A, vitamin E, potassium and iron having Daily Values above 25% (table).

Apricots contain various phytochemicals, such as provitamin A beta-carotene and polyphenols, including catechins and chlorogenic acid.[23] Taste and aroma compounds include sucrose, glucose, organic acids, terpenes, aldehydes and lactones.[24]

Apricot kernels (seeds) contain amygdalin, a poisonous compound. On average, bitter apricot kernels contain about 5% amygdalin and sweet kernels about 0.9% amygdalin. These values correspond to 0.3% and 0.05% of cyanide. Since a typical apricot kernel weighs 600 mg, bitter and sweet varieties contain respectively 1.8 and 0.3 mg of cyanide.