The Short Window For Apricots

With The Fruit Grower Report, I'm Susan Allen. We are smack dab in the middle of apricot harvest, so I thought we should check in with Cole Jessup the apricot specialist at CMI a Wenatchee-based company that packs and ships some of the country's best quality apricots under the Happy Bee Orchard label. Cole, where are we at in harvest?

Jessup :The Yakima, Tri-Cities area started around June 3rd. We didn't start in our area until about June 16th. We are about two weeks behind them; we should be packing for another week or so and then we are done.

Which is perfect timing, given we are heading into hot temperatures in the basin area

Jessup: Anything with soft fruit, any kind of heat doesn't work out to good, it gets them too ripe, to soft, so they could lose their shelf life.

Where are most apricots grown?

JESSUP: Well they are kind of spread out. As an industry there is quite a bit of orchard in the Pasco- Tri-City area, all the way as you move towards Yakima, out in the Mattawa area and then Wenatchee,

Cole also explained that apricots are only available for a short window of time and that what makes our. Apricots so special is that the trees get a lot of winter chill hours and because we are farther north they currently get an extra hour of sun each day. This explains why NW Apricots are so much sweeter.