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CONDITIONS AND POSSIBILITIES OF PRODUCTIVE APRICOT GROWING
With the exception of a few places its cultivation in large-scale farms is being brought to an end.
As a reason for this frost damage could be mentioned which represents a considerable risk in production and results in low crops (Mády, 1981).
A five-year growing period could be characterized as follows: there is one year with 100%, two years with 50% and one with 30% yield and there is probably one when there is no crop at all.
Thus taking the optimal 8.0 ton/ha yield as the base, owing to frost damages an average of 3.5 ton/ha is to be expected.
This is too low for profitable production.
As a result both in large and small-scale farms the production is continuously decreasing (Kiss, 1979).
The area of apricot orchards in large-scale farms was 11935 ha in 1974 and it was only 5697 ha in 1983. Between the two data the territorial loss reached 52% that may be accepted as an explanation of a more than 25% reduction in production.
The yield reduction rate was smaller than the territorial loss which can be explained by a better yield.