Apricot culture: present and future

The major key-points of the apricot industry are as follows: (1) Breeding. There is a wealth of diversity in apricot germplasm, but cultivar improvement is slowed by the high degree of heterozygosity within the species. Most of the production in many countries still comes from chance seedlings and/or local cultivars. (2) Cultivar. Adaptation to the environment is one of the major problems. Combining traits such as chilling and heat requirements, blooming time and frost tolerance in a cultivar with good quality fruits is not easily achievable. (3) Fruit quality. It is by far the most pursued goal in improving scion cultivars. Quantitative traits such as size, firmness, aroma, flavour and sugar content could be improved through recurrent selection because large variability exists within the known germplasm. (4) Diseases. Plum pox virus (PPV) is probably the most serious one in Europe. PPV resistance can be found in several genotypes and is rather easily inherited from the progeny. Nevertheless genetic control of PPV susceptibility is not yet completely understood and tolerance can mask tree infection. Other diseases caused by fungi (e.g. brown rot by Monilinia spp.) and bacteria (e.g. cankers by Pseudomonas sp.) may result in serious damages depending on climatic conditions. Tree decline is still a problem where infection from fungi, bacteria and viruses may worsen the effect of grafting incompatibility. (5) Propagation. A fully compatible rootstock is yet to be found for apricot. Although several good rootstocks have been introduced so far, none of them is widely distributed, scion compatibility and soil adaptation being the major restrains. (6) Orchard management. Pruning, tree training and soil management are today better tailored to the physiological needs of the tree thus leading to a more efficient and healthy plant and to an overall cut of production costs. (7) Processing. Fruits are increasingly processed to make juice, canned and dried fruits, commodities which claim high prices in most markets.