North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Mauch1@aol.com]

Art,
    I don't live in a low-chill area (an area with fluctuating spring 
temperatures - yes, low-chill-no), but I don't think your problem is lack of 
chill hours (someone who lives in a low-chill area should respond to correct 
me if I'm wrong).  If your problem was lack of chill, I would expect your 
bloom to not occur or to occur off-cycle, and you probably wouldn't get fruit 
at all.

Two possibilities come to my mind:
1) Your tree is not completely self-fertile (or not self-fertile in your 
climate).  This could be solved by planting another apricot tree of a 
different variety, or grafting a branch on of another variety.

2) Does Santa Barbara get spring frosts?  If so, you could be losing the 
majority of your blossoms to cold.  Since you're in an area that I believe to 
be low humidity (clear night skies), you could be radiating a lot of heat 
into space and the blossoms are getting killed that way.  There are a number 
of "games" you can play to try to protect and/or delay bloom, but none is 
perfect or foolproof.

Here's a link that shows what temps apricots (and other fruits) can take at 
what stage in bloom:
http://www.msue.msu.edu/vanburen/crittemp.htm

Chris Mauchline
SE PA, zone 6
40° 5' N    75° 51'W
~650 ft elevation

>I purchased an apricot tree from a nursery 5 yrs ago. The >tree requires 600 
>chill hours. I live in Santa Barbara,Ca. We only get about >400 chill hours. 
>The 
>tree is very healthy and has many blooms in the spring but >when the fruit 
>gets about the size of an apple seed they begin to drop off >until it 
>finally 
>winds up with only 4 or 5 apricots. the apricots are very >large and have a 
>good 
>sweet flavor. My question is, will this tree eventually yield >more fruit?