Japanese apricot (ume)

Photo: Kakidai — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 6 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

The fruit is intensely sour and astringent when raw, so it is almost never eaten fresh — instead it is pickled into salty-sour umeboshi, brewed into umeshu plum wine, or simmered into syrups and sauces. ⚠ Kernels/pits cyanogenic.

Hardiness

Zone 6–9

Habit

Tree

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Summer–autumn

Mature size

Small tree 4–10 m

Light

Full sun

Soil pH

6.0–7.0 (near-neutral)

Environment

Subtropical

Native range

Native to southern China, particularly the Yangtze River basin, and long cultivated in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam

Status

Cultivated

Years to fruit

2–4 yrs

Growth speed

45–60 cm/year when young, slowing with age

Spacing

400 cm (157 in) apart — about 16 m² (172 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Broadly ovate with a wedge-shaped base and a long tapering (acuminate) tip, finely serrulate margins, dark green above and downy along the veins beneath.

Root system

Worth knowing that in cultivation this is usually the rootstock's root system, not the species' — most Prunus are sold grafted, and vigour, suckering and soil tolerance follow the stock rather than the top. On its own roots the species is shallow-rooted, with the bulk in the top 40–60 cm spreading well beyond the canopy, so it dislikes cultivation underneath and competes badly with grass.

Fruit description

Round, downy-skinned drupes about 2–3 cm across, ripening yellow-green often blushed red, with tart, firm flesh clinging to a hard, pitted stone.

Propagation

By seed (slow and variable), by semi-hardwood cuttings taken in early summer and treated with rooting hormone, or — most commonly for named cultivars — by T-budding or chip-budding onto Prunus cerasifera (cherry plum) rootstock; grafted trees flower in about two years versus three from seed.

Pollination

Naturally self-incompatible — plant two cultivars for reliable fruit, though some self-compatible cultivars have been bred for single-tree planting

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.