Which apricot varieties would I recommend for Beaverton? None. Sorry but apricots don't seem to cut it in the PNW. Have you ever seen an apricot orchard around here? I live in Canby and while there's plenty of peach orchards around here, I've seen NO apricot growers. When I moved into my current house there was a very healthy looking apricot tree, about ten feet tall and as wide. In the three years before I cut it down it gave me 6 apricots. They bloom too early and our eratic spring warm/frost cycles kill the blossoms. Peaches are better but peach leaf curl must be dealt with. Not to mention peaches are plain difficult to grow here anyway. A variety that has done well for me is "Avalon Pride" which I got from http://www.raintreenursery.com. Has grown ad thrived very well and I expect good harvests from it soon. The cultivar "Frost" is supposedly the most disease resistant variety and they seem to grow pretty well too.
Have you considered apples, pears, cherries or plums instead? Apricots and peaches are going to be much more difficult. But hey, nobody said it would be easy.
Peaches in this area suffer of two main diseases, namely, bacterial canker (Pseudomonas syringae) and peach leaf curl (Taphrina deformans).
Leaf curl is easy to control with at least one spray of sulphur or lime sulphur around the month of February. Make sure it does not rain for 48 hours after applying sprays.
Bacterial canker is a disease that is very difficult to control because it is a bacteria inside the tree and not an external fungus like leaf curl. They try to spray with copper but when the tree gets attacked, the limbs die and the tree becomes leggy.
If I were to choose a peach to grow in Western Oregon, it would a peach that it is very vigorous, because vigorous trees are more resistant to bacterial canker and that is a very difficult disease to control. I suggest a vigorous tree because the trees that are affected the most in the spring by bacterial canker are the ones that are slow growers. Frost peach is definitely a slow grower and gets attacked by bacterial canker and the tree is not healthy at all. They have done a wonderful marketing to promote Frost in Oregon, but in my opinion is not the best choice. I recommend "Veteran" because it is very vigorous. It is susceptible to leaf curl but like I said before leaf curl is easier to control than bacterial canker.
As far as apricots, they are very difficult to grow in this area and the variety "Puget Gold" has been touted as adapted to our maritime climate, but in reality it does not do very well. There are reports by Lon Rombough (http://www.bunchgrapes.com) that he has successfully grown apricots here using the "Chinese Mormon" apricot and actually got a large crop. I imported one apricot from Kazakhstan called "Tevi" apricot that I will be introducing in one year and this tree has been tested in my nursery for the last 4 years without one spray and has survived. Last year I got a small crop and they tasted absolutely delicious. I will offer also in one year the "Briancon" (c with cedille) apricot. The fruit is small and the skin very tart. The taste is pleasant but not as tantalizing as the common apricot. The seeds are edible and impart a deilicious almond flavor to baked goods. It makes delicious jams also. It produces large crops in this area without any spray and I have several trees in my nursery that I have tested and they presented no problem.
To summarize:
Peach: Buy Veteran and spray with sulphur or lime sulphur in February.
Apricot: Buy Chinese Mormon or wait for Tevi or Briancon next year.
I offer these two varieties in my nursery which is located in Scholls, Oregon.
Marcos Camargo
fruit-tree.com nursery
Visit us at http://www.fruit-tree.com
our motto: "Preservation by dissemination"
Yes, covering your peach works. I bought a miniature peach 'var: Honey Babe' about 12 years ago and because it's so small I do get it covered for about 2 months in the winter... and yes I reliably get fruit with a little extra attention on a warm spring day as I play honey bee with the peach pollen then a little thinning later on. I have always used the pollen from my Frost peach though as it produces a much larger quantity of pollen.
TIP:
I liked the idea so much that I bud grafted a few onto an 4 year old apricot tree that had been planted from seed. Then last year they had already fruited. Would never have happened had I not put a small plastic bag over each of them.
Rooney
Antony, it's been a long time since I messed with peaches at my place - 15 years? I remember dealing with "Leaf curl" was easy! But that other stuff that caused the cankers on the limbs to ooze sap, eventually killing one major limb, then another... Until over a 3 year period, both my once beautiful and always babied "Veteran" Peaches were as good as dead! I'd been warned about growing Peaches, and Apricots; one nurseryman told me, "it should be illegal to sell them here!" (the Willamette Valley - I really miss that guys honest advice, his nursery is now the old "Epson" plant NW of Hillsboro...)
So, that's two Veteran Peaches, lasting 3 years, loosing a main scaffold limb each year, and long since replaced by a King apple, and a Desert King fig! It was that Bacterial infection described above that done them in.
I next tried a "Harken" (sp?) Peach, oh yah, as "advertised," it didn't suffer leaf-curl, but as it began to exhibit the same bacterial demise, it didn't take me 3 years to replace it with my new pride and joy; a beautiful Jiro Persimmon tree! The hardest part for me is that I have a photo of my Great Grandfather standing in front of his prized Peach tree! - that's right out here where I now live, it haunts me! Guess I'll never be the Orchardist he was... But then he didn't have any figs, persimmons, or kiwi; and maybe that particular strain of bacteria hadn't arrived yet?
The "fast growing" aspect may be one possibility... but mine were in full sun & good soil, with plenty of water, and I'm sure a bit of fertilizer. Hate to see anyone waste years... Good luck!
Veterans are the only peach trees that I have seen producing fruit around here for a long time. Branches die, but the tree is so vigorous if well cared for that it more than replenishes the few lost branches in one season.
I will be selling "Black Boy" which is a peach from New Zealand which has a better survival rate than any other that I've seen. It produces a beet color peach that is fantastic.
Good luck.
Marc Camargo
fruit-tree.com nursery
Visit us at http://www.fruit-tree.com
our motto: "Preservation by dissemination"
I have seen a number of productive Apricot trees in the Portland Area. Problem is, they don't seem to produce every year. The Puget Gold produces large, tasty fruit, and lots of it. If and when, it decides to produce. The trees I have seen, also showed no signs of disease, dispite being unsprayed.
Find a way to protect your blossoms from frost damage, and apricots might be a viable option.
Trees other than Puget Gold are a poor bet. Many types of trees die promptly. Tiltons may survive, but those I have seen, showed disease problems that disfigured the fruit.
Idyllwild
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
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