North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Martha L. Davis" <martha_davis@earthlink.net>]

Stephan,
 
"As your friendly neighborhood biochemist" How do you suggest I test apricot 
kernels for low amigdalyn levels?  I am grafting a variety of types, some of 
which are known to be sweet pit and some bitter and some unknown.  I am 
interested in using sweet ones as nuts, but certainly not interested in 
cyanide poisoning.  I know that it is possible to use heat to denature the 
enzyme that converts the precursor to the poison, when done on bitter pits 
one gets a sort of solid almond flavoring not a nut in the munchie sense, but 
it seems likely that that processing method isn't used on the sweet pit ones 
and isn't needed.  Any ideas?

Martha