YAKIMA — With harvest falling in between more popular fruit such as cherries, peaches and pears, the apricot sometimes can be overlooked in the Yakima Valley’s orchards.
But fans of the sweet orange fruit have plenty of them to eat fresh, can or dry for future use this summer, as the region has seen a strong apricot crop in 2023.
“This has been a great apricot year for us,” said Sean Gilbert, president of Gilbert Orchards. “We don’t grow as many apricots as we used to, but this is the best year we’ve had in a while.”
The observations of Gilbert and other growers are confirmed by statistics from the Washington State Department of Agriculture, which showed 2,361.5 tons of apricots had been shipped out of Washington as of July 22.
A majority of those apricots (1,802.7 tons) were shipped within the United States, with nearly all the rest sent to Canada (340.4 tons) and Mexico (218.4 tons), the WSDA reported.
B.J. Thurlby, president of the Washington State Fruit Commission, said those numbers already have reached the state’s average production of 2,361 tons, with some varieties of apricots still being harvested and shipped.
“They have had a pretty good year,” Thurlby said. “The apricots have done better this year than in 2022 when our crop was down due to snow on the blooms.”
Gilbert also credited the weather, noting the late-June 2021 heat dome and April 2022 cold temperatures and snowfall affected fruit development and pollination, respectively.
“The weather was not too cold like last spring, and not too hot like two summers ago,” he added. “The pack rate (for apricots) ended up being pretty good.”
Robada the most popular variety
Gilbert Orchards and other Yakima Valley growers harvest the Robada variety, which is by far the most popular apricot in Washington state.
The WSDA statistics show 1,348.2 tons of Robadas were shipped through July 22, about 57% of the state’s total apricot shipments.
Other popular varieties include Rival (6.3% of total shipments), Perfection (5%) and Goldbar (4.4%).
The latter variety, along with Goldrich and Tomcot, remain in stock at the Fruit City farm stand in Union Gap. Brothers J.R. and Lynn St. Aubin own Fruit City, located near the Pepp’rmint Stick Drive-In, and said locally grown apricots are a popular mid-summer choice for customers.
“It’s been one of the better (apricot harvests) in the past few years,” J.R. St. Aubin said Thursday.
Eric Johnson, co-owner of Johnson Orchards in Yakima, anticipated having apricots through the final days of July at his fruit stand. A display set up at the Summitview Avenue shop on Thursday afternoon featuring organic Southern Cross and Rival varieties.
Like Gilbert, Valicoff Fruit Co. President Rob Valicoff said his family-owned operation based in Wapato harvested an “impressive” crop of apricots this year.
Use of apricots
In addition to enjoying them as fresh fruit, apricots are used in baking, dried and canned either whole or as preserves (similar to jams and jellies).
They are rich in Vitamin A, beta-carotene and antioxidants, according to the website webmd.com. Apricots also contain nutrients such as carotenoids and xanthophylls, which improve night vision and help slow age-related eyesight issues.
Many people dry apricots to enjoy months later, or put them in a trail mix instead of or in addition to raisins.
While their customers may dry them for future use, Gilbert Orchards just sells them fresh.
“We definitely target the fresh market for apricots,” Gilbert said. “We don’t really know how many get eaten fresh and how many are dried or preserved. People buy them fresh and they can use them for a lot of different purposes.”
Gilbert and Valicoff said they are done harvesting their apricots, but Yakima Valley grocery stores and farm stands still have some locally grown fruit available.
Unlike Northwest cherries, which fought for market share against a large and late crop from California, the healthy number of high-quality apricots in this year’s harvest came at a good time in regard to the national supply, Gilbert said.
“I think apricots are a niche market, so oversupply can be an issue. But that wasn’t the case this year,” he added. “We still have some left to sell, and we still have some available in the local grocery stores.”
