At the dawn of spring, the apricot trees of HDC Lamotte in the Drôme valley have turned pink. This year, the blossoming occurred 10 days ahead of schedule. "We had a lot of cold weather early in the season and with the mild weather in February, the apricot trees went into bloom earlier than usual. The later varieties, such as the Bergeron, will also be in full bloom in the coming days," explains Christophe Lamotte, manager of HDC Lamotte.

This early flowering narrows the gap with the apricot production in the Gard region. "In addition to our own production, we market apricots from the Gard region. Traditionally, the flowering of our trees occurs at least 8 days later. This year, the flowering periods are equivalent and some of our varieties are even ahead of theirs."

"We are entering a period of mobilization to prepare for potential frost"
The company is satisfied with the return of flowering in its orchards, but there is still a certain heterogeneity between growers and sectors compared to last year's flowering. "We still have big variations in temperature. There is no explosion in flowering as we saw last year and due to the practice of alternation, the trees are a little less crowded than last year. All of these conditions should come together nicely, and we are fairly positive about the rest of the season. We, of course, have to keep an eye on the weather until mid-April to protect our orchards from the risk of frost. This risk is all the greater now that flowering is ahead of schedule.

New apricot variety chosen for its taste potential
On its 28 hectares of apricot trees, HDC Lamotte has just planted 1.5 hectares of Nelson, a variety that goes into production in the last week of July/first week of August, selected by the company for its "strong taste potential."

Source - https://www.freshplaza.com