Apricot AC™ Harostar

A midseason apricot with excellent disease resistance. Also known as HW 436, Harostar.

The tree is upright, productive, and healthy, producing an apricot that ripens 10 days after Harcot. Exceptionally bright and attractive, AC™ Harostar is a large apricot that ripens uniformly with a pretty red blush on an orange background. The flesh is firm and freestone. The fruit is also resistant to bacterial spot, brown rot and skin cracking. This tree is self-fertile, but production will be improved by a pollenizer. This apricot receives high scores in taste trials, but its rating as a canned fruit is low.

As Bob Purvis explains in Pomona, Fall 2006: "The earliest apricots brought to North America were mostly from Spain and similar Mediterranean climates, and they did not include the genes for a broader range of climatic adaptability. Modern breeders have sought out germplasm in many places, including central Asia where the apricot is thought to have originated." One such breeding program is based in Harrow, Ontario, and it has produced the "Harrow Series" of cold-hardy apricots that are suitable for New York and New England. AC™ Harostar was released by this program in 2000, in the same year as AC™ Haroblush and AC™ Harojoy. Unfortunately its parentage is unknown, as this data was lost during the breeding trials.