Question

Pooja and her apricot tree story

Answer 1

Apricots originated on the Russian-Chinese border in about 3000 BC and were imported along with peach seed into Europe through the “Silk Road” that extended camelback trading to the Mideast. The fruit grows as an escaped naturalized plant along modern roadsides in Turkey and Armenia today in abundant numbers. Apricots were known in ancient Greece in 60 BC and later introduced into the Roman Empire. The apricot trees are believed to have arrived in the early American colonies in seed form for growing into fruit trees by the French explorers of the 1700’s in Gulf regions and in the Eastern United States and at California monasteries by Spanish explorers and missionaries.

The apricot, Prunus armeniaca L., has a distinctive taste and no other fruit has a flavor to match it. Fresh apricots picked directly from the trees are delicious, if a person is fortunate enough to live close to an apricot tree orchard. Canners of the apricot fruit have supplied national markets reliably with tasty tree-ripened apricots. The most important market for apricot fruit developed from the exceptional quality, when the aromatic apricot is dried.

The apricot tree is beautiful in the landscape and can grow to a large size and to a great age, as the massive root system extends in giant growth explosions each year, growing further from the trunk. The apricot tree is very healthy and vigorous and appears to be resistant to most disease and insect problems, as it produces more and more substantial crops of fruit each year as the tree matures. The apricot tree can be grown in extensive areas of the Eastern and Central United States and were well northward; however, the cold hardiness of the tree itself is verifiable, but early frosts can damage the fruit.