North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Dave Griffin" <griffingardens@earthlink.net>]

Hi Doug,
  My continental climate in central MN is the light version of the native
Manchurian climate - winters that come on and go away relatively quickly
and stay cold in the middle - so I don't have some of the deaclimation
problems others might have due to 'Manchurica's' short chill hour
requirement. Still, they are apricots and bloom too early. They are the
earliest of my apricots but only just a day or two before the Canadians you
mentioned. I haven't fruited Scout but the Canadians - Westcot, Brookcot,
Morden 604, and Debbie's Gold are all way too good for fresh eating to make
jam out of them. Sungold and Moongold are both much inferior by comparison
and have the worst features of both the wild and hardy Canadian apricots
plus a few of their own - like being "self picking" and prone to a 100%
June drop. To me the Manchurians are well worth the additional risk just
for the jam if you are in an area where you can grow apricots at all. They
are very productive and you can make enough jam in a good year to carry you
through a fruitless one.
  I have come by my Manchurian apricot jam expertise by curiosity and
default after finding none of the people I would have expected to have
tried it had done so. If someone else out there has also made Manchurian
jam I would appreciate their comments.
  The Manchurian is a wild apricot and its lack of improvement for fresh
eating is evident with the first bite. But like beach plums and
chokecherries, that doesn't mean that they don't make excellent preserves,
and may be a recommendation for it. That said, I am sure there is someone
who enjoys some or all of these for fresh eating, there always is, and to
you I say, more power to you, and go ahead and savor your involuntary
pucker, I like a strong fruit taste too but I'll make jam. 
  I have used the fruit from about 15 different trees and found the usual
seedling variability but there are more similarities than differences in
general. Most of these originated with Lawyer Nursery which has
questionable provenance for them but the mixed European ones seem to get
weeded out in time.  I feel that there is already enough risk in raising
apricots to keep it interesting so I grow my own seedlings from a known
hardy source to eliminate the additional guesswork.  Fruit is all around 1"
dia.and has a large pit - but while this sounds like a low yield formula
and is by commercial apricot standards, considering the other two wild
fruits I mentioned, it seems like a bonanza of efficiency. The soft flesh
is semi-clingstone to clingstone but not so much as wild plums. Like with
plums, you can blanch and squeeze out the pits but change out of your
Sunday best and don't do this in the company of an intolerant companion
with a tendency to hold a grudge. Removing the pits before cooking is a
must. Some green fruit doesn't seem to make any difference either way.
  This is my recipe for a tart jam. 

                7 cups chopped and pitted fruit 
                5 cups sugar
                1 pkg Ball brand no sugar needed pectin 
                
                 The soft flesh needs the skins for body so don't puree or
remove them - they will soften with cooking. Stir pectin
                 into fruit and let stand 15 minutes. Slowly bring to a
boil, add sugar, then boil hard stirring constantly 
                 until mixture starts to thicken - at least one minute. Hot
pack.

 Add another cup of sugar if you don't like the bite. The flavor will knock
you right back about 6" then make you sit up straight and take notice.

Dave
                


> [Original Message]
> From: <dwoodard@becon.org>
> To: <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: 2/8/05 6:41:40 PM
> Subject: [NAFEX] re: Manchurian Bush Apricots
>
> At the price Doreen quotes these are obviously seedlings.
>
> I would be most interested if Dave Griffin can tell us explicitly whether
> average seedlings have good quality for jam.
>
> There is apparently considerable variation in the sensitivity of
> Manchurian apricot to winter thaws and spring freezes causing dormancy
> problems. The Vineland experiment station in the Niagara peninsula found
> it impossible to keep the cultivar Sansin (bred in Manitoba I believe)
> alive, and Scout didn't last too well. Prunus armeniaca is a profitable
> commercial crop in the peninsula, especially east of St. Catharines,
> and Vineland has bred many cultivars. Ken Taylor at Montreal (Windmill
> Point Farm) found one of the cultivars of P. mandschurica that used to be
> offered by Lakeshore Tree Farms of Saskatoon did well with him and the
> other did not (sorry, I can't recall their names at the moment).
>
> The Alberta station at Brooks bred Brookcot to be growable and
> reasonably productive in chinook country.
>
> The Morden, Manitoba bred cultivars Westcot and Morden 604 are a mix of
> armeniaca and mandschurica. Morden 604 was in the Vineland collection for
> many years and may be still.
>
> All of which implies that if you are in the east in sugar maple country
> and you grow one seedling of Manchurian apricot it may or may not suit
> your climate. I think it would be a considerable gamble. You could select
> from several but you would have to wait until they fruited for a few
> years. I think that with restricted space a cultivar known to do well in
> the locality or a similar climate would be a better bet.
>
> Doug Woodard
> St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
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