Saturday, Jun. 28, 2008

Waterford farmer brings intensely tasty apricot from Asia to valley

WATERFORD -- John Driver has flown halfway around the world for apricots. For 12 years, he regularly has explored the fruit's legendary growing areas in Central Asia. This month, he started gathering the bounty.

At his farm here, where he planted trees derived from seeds he brought back from his journeys, Driver harvested his first commercial crop of intensely flavored fruit. Labeled CandyCots, they are twice as sweet as the apricots usually sold in the United States.

For decades, plant explorers, breeders and farmers have dreamed of bringing such supersweet varieties from the apricot's center of origin to California, which produces 90 percent of the United States crop, mainly in western Stanislaus County. Time and again, the promise has led to frustration because the trees generally needed colder winters than those in California, and in other states spring frosts often killed their buds.

But Driver, 56, may have succeeded with varieties that seem well-adapted to his area. The 10th-generation farmer -- who also grows almonds and walnuts and has a background in plant genetics and international development -- planted a test plot of 275 apricot trees in 2001.

Starting in 2005, Driver sold fruits at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco. The next year, he planted the six varieties most popular with shoppers at an eight-acre transitional organic orchard (the one now starting to bear). He is crossbreeding these to create better varieties.

His apricots average 26 degrees on the Brix scale of sweetness, double the figure typical for most American varieties. Some range into the mid-30s, surpassing any fresh fruit except dates.

Driver is taking the unusual step of shipping his fruit to stores fully ripe, packed in foam-padded boxes to avoid bruising.

"Maybe I'm crazy, but I think the industry needs to re-examine how they're selling fruit," he said. "If I were a consumer, this is what I'd want."

His most extraordinary variety has smooth, fuzzless skin like a plum, tender yellow flesh and a honey taste. Such glossy-skinned apricots are fairly common in Central Asia but never have been grown here.

Most CandyCots are small and have deep orange flesh. Some hang on the tree after maturity, drying like raisins, and develop concentrated flavor. They have sweet, edible seeds in their pits.

Driver obtained many of his seeds in the Fergana Valley, a stretch of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan famous for the diversity of its apricots. He was there to help local apricot farmers for the Christian nonprofit group Community Development Consultants and for a program financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development. What he found could help revive Americans' taste for the fruit.

Most of the apricots sold at domestic markets lack the musky fragrance and rich flavor of the best varieties. As recently as 20 years ago, the leading variety grown in California was Blenheim, an heirloom packed with sweet-tart flavor. But urbanization and competition from imports of Turkish dried apricots have almost annihilated cultivation in its traditional growing area around San Jose.

Farmers moved east to cheaper land in the San Joaquin Valley, but they could not grow Blenheim there because the heat cooked its tender flesh. They planted tougher but not as intensely flavored varieties. Sales and plantings plummeted.

Like Driver, other apricot breeders saw hope in Central Asia. In 1988, Maxine Thompson of Oregon State University brought back varieties from the Hunza Valley in northern Pakistan, but they rarely fruited in California.

Craig Ledbetter, a breeder with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has been crossing supersweet Hunzas with larger-fruited varieties adapted to California conditions. Last week at his test plot in Parlier, his most promising trees bore heavy crops of large fruit with almost as much sugar as the average CandyCot.

The Central Asian fruits are not the only varieties to make lengthy journeys. In Brentwood, F.A. Maggiore & Sons hopes to harvest 100,000 pounds of Angelcots, sweet white apricots that fruit breeder Ross Sanborn developed from Iranian and Moroccan seeds.

Two pale varieties are available for planting by home gardeners. Zaiger's Genetics of Modesto has introduced a white aprium (an apricot-plum hybrid) named Cot-N-Candy. Joseph Goffreda, a Rutgers breeder, released Sugar Pearls, a white apricot of Afghan and Iranian parentage that is adapted to Middle Atlantic growing conditions.

As for the CandyCots, Driver is planning on growing demand. He has taken on partners, Chris Britton and Paul Van Konynenburg, who will plant 14 acres north of Modesto next winter. He is working with a farmer in Washington state to grow more.

"Ultimately," he said, "we'd like to have 1,000 to 1,500 acres."

Bee staff writer John Holland contributed to this report.