THE APRICOT SITUATION IN THE REGION OF MURCIA

The community of Murcia is a very important area of apricot culture in Europe with yields in the mid-range of Spanish apricot production. The culture area is focused on an area of 50-km radius, in the middle stretch of the river Segura. The most important orchard traits are: 300 to 500 trees/ha planting density, “Vase Italian” training system, trickle irrigation, thinning of fruits and “hydrogen Cyanamid” spray for early cultivars. Nearly 100% of Murcian apricot cultivars are native: ‘Bulida’ (the most important, assigned to the fresh market or the canning industry), the “Clases” group (‘Pepito del Rubio’, ‘Carrascal’, etc.), the “early” group of ‘Mauricio’ and Valencia early cultivars (mainly ‘Currot’, ‘Ginesta’ and ‘Palabras’) and ‘Real Fino’. The most-used rootstock is the apricot seedling, but, in areas with culture since long ago, there are still orchards with ‘Pollizo’ plum. The harvest occurs over May and June. The main problems for varietal updating in Murcia are related to the environmental conditions in Murcia, the need to equal or surpass the cultivar ‘Bulida’ and the tolerance or resistance to Sharka. The productive behaviour of recent introductions of many foreign cultivars, such as ‘Orange Red’, ‘Goldbar’, ‘Goldstrike’, ‘Kow’, ‘Jordan’ and ‘Kyoto’ has been very irregular or simply bad, because of bad adaptation to Murcian weather conditions. It is very important to consider the added cost for good pollination demand (pollinator trees, beehive-placing and pollen spray). The new CEBAS selections, ‘Rojo Pasion’, ‘Murciana’ and ‘Selene’, and the new IVIA selections are in the introduction phase, with big expectations in both the productive and commercial sectors. Some self-rooted cultivars have a noteworthy performance.