A NEW DRIED AND TABLE APRICOT CULTIVAR (‘ALKAYA’) AND A NEW TABLE APRICOT CULTIVAR ‘GU 52’ (GULERYUZ)

Malatya province of Turkey is the most important area for dried apricot production in the world.
The most important advantage of dried apricot is cheap and easy long-term storage and its release on the market at any time as requested.
So, many new apricot orchards have been established during the last 10 years and dried apricot production has increased but not enough to release the demanded amount on domestic and global markets.
To solve this problem, the dried apricots varieties cultivated in Malatya province have started being harvested fresh for exportation and this tendency has been encouraged in recent years, too.
Therefore, the dried apricot varieties harvested fresh for exportation are generally demanded to be big, attractive and preferably with red cheek.

This study was carried out to determine phenological and pomological charac¬ters of ‘Alkaya’ and ‘GU-52’ apricots during 2004-2006 seasons in a producer’s orchard located in Alisar village of Battalgazi town and the Fruit Research Institute in Malatya province of Turkey.
Their fruits are large, more attractive than other dried and table apricot varieties, and are produced for fresh consumption. ‘GU-52’ was selected from Erzincan Plain by Prof.
Dr.
Muharrem Guleryuz at Ataturk University.
All morphological characters of these two accessions were evaluated according to UPOV criteria.