Light Fruit Load Due to Many Possibilities

Q. Yesterday my neighbor was kind enough to share a jar of apricot jam she made from her 2017 crop of fruit. She mentioned, however, that her trees in 2018 produced hardly enough fruit to go through the jam-making process. Is it possible that our warmish winter was a factor? I believe my neighbor's trees "came with the house," so she doesn't know if they are the low chill variety.

A. The weather was too cold for early flowering apricots and peaches in 2018 and again in 2019. In 2018 it was so cold and overcast that honeybees didn’t come out to pollinate the flowers, but temperatures were above freezing so the flowers didn’t freeze. The result was poor fruit set in many early apricots because of poor pollination.

            In 2019 it was also cold when early flowering fruit trees began blooming. These low temperatures, again, limited honeybee activity and resulted in poor pollination. On top of that though, freezing temperatures occurred at least 3 times in February. Open flowers and their potential for fruit production do not survive even the slightest freeze. If you had an apricot tree that was flowering during freezing temperatures, there is a strong chance it won’t produce much fruit this year.

            The chilling requirement for apricot to produce fruit was met in both 2018 and 2019. A lack of winter low temperature was not the problem. In 2019 poor fruit production will be a combination of low honeybee activity and freezing temperatures.