Talk:Apricot/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Apricots in bloom

What is the source of the phrase "when the apricots are in bloom"? Is it used to suggest something that might take a long time, or might never happen?

I have no idea about the exact reference. However, because apricots "bloom" relatively early in the harvest season, they are a general indicator of seasonal change. --Vector4F 02:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Apricot/tanker

Here's a source for the apricot vs. tanker superstition: http://www.mcnews.info/mcnewsinfo/marines/divisions/pme.shtml Marhault 06:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

There's no word about apricots on that page

84.145.63.248 13:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect Data in table at "Production trends"

Data shown here are not the FAO data for apricots for 2005.

For example, here are some correct data (1,000 tonnes) —

Turkey — 860
world total — 3,443

— Haim Berman 14:32, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

In culture section validity?

Could we get some references for the claims made in this section? For instance, does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints really have a song, "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree", in their Children's Songbook? I'm removing the section about Will Grant - it sounds like vandalism, and irrelevant. If I'm wrong...? I'm also reverting the strange reference to the Shamdack Bear back to "apricot in Damascus" - if the literal translation really is "Shamdack Bear", could somebody please explain how either the quote or the bear is relevant? --Leviel (talk) 18:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

The "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree" song certainly exists, as the Google search shows, but it's not as notable as the other entries in the culture section so I've removed it. It's just a children's song sung by one denomination of a religion. Graham87 12:11, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Blenheim cultivar

The following web page is about the Blenheim cultivar, suggesting that it is in danger of becoming extinct.

http://www.welovejam.com/save.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.43.39.60 (talk) 15:56, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure - the external links in this site should be about apricots in general, not just one cultiver. But there can be exceptions to every rule. Graham87 —Preceding undated comment added 00:41, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

A quick GOOGLE shows many nurseries selling Blenheim apricot trees. This cultivar does not seem to be "becoming extinct," although its commercial importance may be decreasing. This cultivar (the fruit of which does not ship well) seems to be an American phenomenon, despite being billed as the best in the world. The web page, however, is merely an advertisement, and therefore does not belong in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.84.182.57 (talk) 09:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Copyedit and clarification needed

In the cultivation section, a sentence begins, "In their native China, winters can be very cold, but temperatures tend to be more stable than in Europe and especially North America", whereas most of the remaining article claims the apricot is native to India, not China. Since I don't have access to the references that were given, is there anybody who can straighten this out? 98.208.102.195 (talk) 07:10, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be POV stuff in relation to its origin. What archeological evidence, if any, is there to back up these claims of the apricot being from China, or from India? Citing some source saying it is from such and such a country is unsatisfactory without having an explanation of why it is thought to originate from those places. Here, at least, is one hard fact. In 1949, apricot seeds were found during excavations of Eneolithic layers at Garni in Armenia. "Excavations at Garni, 1949-50" by B. Arakelyan, in "Contributions to the Archaeology of Armenia", (Henry Field, ed.), 1968, page 29. Tamamtamamtamam (talk) 21:53, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

In the light of the above, I have removed the "In Armenia it was known from ancient times; having been brought along the Silk Road" claim in the article. There was no "Silk Road" in Eneolithic times. Tamamtamamtamam (talk) 21:59, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

History of Cultivation (text) versus Apricots, raw (table head)

On my browser, I'm seeing text flow behind the table head. If this is some kind of error in the code for the page, I don't know how to correct it. Ed8r (talk) 16:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

map of production: errors?

1) The map is labeled as applying to 2005, but the tiny print identifies it as representing world production in 2006. 2) The U.S. is a large country: the yellow dot should be located on the West Coast, approximately in Northern California, since that is where the bulk of production is located.

Ed8r (talk) 16:52, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Purpose of external link?

What is the purpose of the external link to The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction at Project Gutenberg? I don't see any connection to the material on this page. Nadiatalent (talk) 14:49, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

It was probably added as a source at some point, before footnoted references were common, to show that someone, somewhere, thought that apricots were native to Africa. Since it spends exactly a paragraph on the topic of apricots, and the current text of the article doesn't mention Africa at all, I've removed it from the external links section. Graham87 05:36, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Peach/Plum?

Isn't a Apricot a mix between a Peach and a Plum?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.208.89.99 (talk • contribs).

No, it is a distinct speciesrelated to both. Wwm101 (talk) 18:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Removed bigoted paragraph

"Romans believed that the crop was 'from Armenia,' whatever that should mean" shows inherent bias against the Armenian origin of the flora and was removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kkhach (talk • contribs) 00:40, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the page is improved by the removal. Nadiatalent (talk) 13:05, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Threatened

Why is the apricot considered threatened when it is so widely cultivated. Am I misunderstanding what that means or is there a mistake in the diagram? Comatose51 (talk) 19:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Apricots are not in danger of becoming extinct in totality, only in the wild. Wwm101 (talk) 18:52, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I have changed the endangered status to LC from EN. This has nothing to do with whether they are endangered "in the wild". Either they're endangered or they're not. Prunus Armeniaca is not endangered. According to the reference previously provided, the Armeniaca vulgaris is endangered. It would be reasonable to add a section on related species, or to add a top level entry for Armeniaca vulgaris, but it's misleading to suggest that apricots are endangered and prevents anybody from taking the classification seriously. --Tim.spears (talk) 18:51, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Pronounciation of apricot

Could somebody with knowledge on the subject comment on the variables in pronunciation of "apricot"? I believe that southerners typically pronounce the first vowel similar as in "rain" while northerner's typically pronounce it similar as in "apple". However, this is based on personal experience and not on linguistic data.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nwbh (talk • contribs). --Ricardo Carneiro Pires 17:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

In the Santa Clara Valley (northern California) where I grew up among apricot orchards, the 'a' was pronounced as in 'rain'. I never heard the short a as in 'apple' until I was an adult, and it sounded wrong. I don't know any more about the distribution pattern of that pronunciation. Petershank 15:20, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

There's only one right way to say it and that is the way I say it. Dave 20:43, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

My mother was from PA and my father was from NY so I grew up in CA pronouncing it with the a in apple, anything else just sounds wrong to me. Mylittlezach (talk) 02:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm from Detroit, and I say either APP-rikot or APE-rikot. StuRat (talk) 05:01, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

a distinctively sour flavour?

The Apricot has a distinctively sour flavour.

Sour is certainly not a descriptor I would have come up with. Would you say the same thing about a ripe peach or plum? I think they're all in a similar broad category of flavors, which I would call sweet with some tartness. But not distinctively sour. Pretty hard to find a citation for flavor. 170.35.224.64 (talk) 20:46, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

That is so not true. Apricot taste varies between regions but normally it's a sweet fruit. Sour apricots are usually harvested early and exported to other countries so it doesn't rot on the way. A full grown apricot is quite sweet. You're either eating early apricots or you will in an importing country. You're missing the actual taste of apricot, lovely sweet apricot! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.166.196.240 (talk) 14:12, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Format

The article is or is getting sloppy and one of the sloppy items is the nutritionalvalue box. The template allows exactly one flag, right=1 or nothing. If nothing you get a nice box on the left but unfortunately it takes position at the top of the heading and will not share the space with text. If right is set, the box changes width and box outline width and color and goes on the right and also does not share that space. I tweaked the position and size of the photos to minimize the right effect of the box, but it still doesn't look right. I looked at the code for the box and it is all table stuff, which I could probably improve by experimenting in the sand box. However, it is someone else's box and I do not wish to take it over. Box author, where are you? Can you fix your box? How about width and line width flags or variables and can't we get the box to allow text on the other side? Dave 20:43, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I concur. The layout of images is a bit crowded for a large screen (I am viewing on a 1600x900 monitor). I also see some odd-looking overflow of text onto the "Fresh Apricots on display" image. Elvisman113 (talk) 17:24, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Varieties

I would like to see an extended discussion on varieties of apricots. For example, in Korea, apricot trees are grown as decorative trees in some cities and the fruit is not harvested from these trees, perhaps because the apricots are so small compared to orchard apricots. So, are these trees a separate strain, or what? The fruit is enough different in appearance that I thought they probably weren't apricots until locals told me they were.Also, what about the Japanese apricot,Prunus mume, which, while a different species should probably be referenced because of the name.211.225.34.164 (talk) 04:02, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, 'Prunus mume' has its own page. I agree that the 'Apricot' page is lacking a section about cultivated varieties of the species: very limited information is scattered in the text and does not represent the current state of the crop. For several reasons: (1) in the last three decades a great deal of information has been accumulated on the genetics of agronomically important or useful characteristics; (2) and at the same time, some effort has been done to record the occurrence thereof in some of the best varieties for using them as parents in breeding programs, so now we are neareer to create very quickly (in a few years) new varieties with a given set of characteristics (almost luike the peach growers have achieved about 50 years before); (3) as a consequence, at present we are in a period or rapid introduction in commerce of new varieties, some with a very ephemerous life due to this rapid turnover and not to any lack of meriut or quality; (4) and of course for western researchers there is a great limitation concerning the knowledge of 'eastern' (in a very broad geographical sense) cultivated varieties either because scientific contacts and exchanges are still limited though increasing (limited by Cold War and poor development of research in some contries east of Turkey, for instance; limited by linguistic reasons in what concerns China and Japan; etc.); and of course this factor works the other way round leading to a lack of knowledge about the western situation among the eastern researchers. Believe me, trying to give a clear picture of worldwide currently cultivated apricot varieties is not an easy job...Jmsmartins (talk) 10:37, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Plagiarism

The Etymology part is copied nearly word for word from the book "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs" See here: http://books.google.com/books?id=mZEhZMOFLiQC&pg=PT3681&lpg=PT3681&dq=pliny+the+elder+praecocia&source=bl&ots=LiamHSoW6s&sig=oL-_7jx0vixlOpybqgrN1kgIaTc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1iyiUoa8KO3JsQSFhIKYBw&ved=0CGkQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=pliny%20the%20elder%20praecocia&f=false — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.54.76.235 (talk) 20:09, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

That doesn't appear to be the gist of it. That eBook appears to be an aggregate work which has taken the free info from Wikipedia and published it. There are no credits or attribution for authorship at all.
— Berean Hunter (talk) 20:19, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree, the cited eBook should not be taken as a reference. In any case allow me to comment a bit further on this slippery subject. References to etymology of names occur everywhere in the scientific literature of agronomy and cultivated plants; but most of them lack a proper citation of sources although many can be traced as plain copies of previous scientific articles (it seems that for scientists in this area, where I am included, proper authorship citation is due only to "scientists", this quality being refused to linguists); many are even very inaccurate copies, which are further repeated by others (this enables us to trace some uncited origins of those myths while contributing to the propagation of erroneous informations). In recent years, reasonably good information can be found in the works by Prof. Jules Janick (signed by himself; I cannot say the same of many colaborators of the books where he served as editor). The section on History of Cultivation of the Wikipedia article voices a lot of those mythical "origins", legends current in several countries, in spite of being based in scientific literature: for the purpose of establishing sound historical facts, the papers published in the ISHS Apricot Symposia (more than a dozen volumes of Acta Horticulturae) are not at all reliable (I served as editor of a few of them and participated in some of the symposia; only in recent years the editorial policy of Acta Horticulturae does enforce strict editorial criteria). These references to traditions without no historical ground but nevertheless respectable (e.g. the origin of apricot in Armenia or the Caucasus) should be moved to the place where they belong (perhaps to chapter In culture).

To the point (the name of apricot). In the Wikipedia article (as in others about fruit trees) I feel the lack of some rearranging (mea culpa, I did not give a high priority to this task) involving the sections Etymology and History of Cultivation, together with a disambiguation: the scientific name has nothing to do with etymology of the common name. It is an arbitrary choice of the researchers who describes or reclassifies the taxon (species or other rank). In the description, some reference can be made to the derivation of the name as purported by its author; but this is recommended by the modern Codes of (Biological) Nomenclature, it does not apply to conserved names from earlier centuries (Linnaeus, Tournefort, etc.). If we analyse probably the best modern scientific review of the apricot species (M. Faust et al 1998, Origin and dissemination of apricot, in Horticultural Reviews 22:225-266), we can see that, as in Alphonse De Candolle's book on the Origin of cultivated plants, the linguistic evidence is used as contributing information to understand the history of the domestication and of the geografical dispersion of the crops. Again following this review, it becomes evident a certain "ethnocentrism", so to speak, of the Etymology section: it deals only with the history of armeniaca and apricot, that is, modern European languages (and even those with some gaps, for instance the survival of armeniaca derived names in some regions), and leaves without mention a rich plethora of information contained in the etymology of the name of this species in other linguistic families; information interesting for the Economic History (as it illustrates relations between peoples) and for the history of the cultivation of this fruit. Concerning the accuracy of the information: I trust the etymological derivation of praecox->apricot from Latin through Arabic that can be found in several good dictionaries of several languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese; citing authorship or origin of information). I checked that it is true what is said about Pliny (it is also another "tradition" in agronomy to refere many origins to Pliny, even to the point of including his Natural History in the references list in connection with incorrect translations of his words) as well as what is said about Caspar Bauhin (but I am not a historian of science and thus cannot assert that there are no other published links which are being missed, except that perplexing chapter title in Ibn al-Awwam's 12th century treatise). This is true for the currency of the term armeniaca in the scientific literature: in the common languages is another story. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmsmartins (talk • contribs) 13:09, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. DrKiernan (talk) 18:29, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Apricot → Prunus armeniaca – There are several species considered to be Apricots, and it is difficult to discuss them when "Apricot" is here considered to be just one of those species, and there is no currently accepted taxonomic grouping for them that can be filed under a different name. At one time, they were classified in section Armeniaca, but currently that is thought to be polyphyletic, not to be used. The disambiguation page doesn't help because there are apricot-like fruit from more distantly related species that are also called, e.g., desert apricot. Horticultural botanists find the phrase "the apricots" to be useful, as for example in Bortiri, E.; Oh, S.-H.; Jiang, J.; Baggett, S.; Granger, A.; Weeks, C.; Buckingham, M.; Potter, D.; Parfitt, D.E. (2001). "Phylogeny and systematics of Prunus (Rosaceae) as determined by sequence analysis of ITS and the chloroplast trnL-trnF spacer DNA". Systematic Botany. 26 (4): 797–807. JSTOR 3093861.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link): "Prunus brigantina, the only apricot species native to Europe".

The "apricots" are:

Prunus armeniaca
Prunus brigantina
Prunus mandshurica
Prunus mume
Prunus sibirica Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:00, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose. A large portion of the article is about the fruit -- the food that the average person buys and eats. Not only should the fruit be the primary topic of "apricot", it is the most common name for this type of food in the English-speaking world. I doubt any average person around the English-speaking world says, "I am going to the store to buy/order some prunus armeniaca to eat". And per WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, there is also a naturalness and consistency to the name of the fruit articles. And there is WP:FLORA#Guidelines, which basically says that the common name should be used instead of the scientific name when a plant has a use that makes it more prominent in some other field than botany. Thus, we have the article titled apple, not Malus domestica. There is a page titled pear, not Pyrus. We have strawberry, not Fragaria × ananassa. We have lemon, not Citrus × limon. It's pineapple, not Ananas comosus. And so forth. Yes, there are other apricot-like fruits, like the desert apricot or the Japanese apricot, but in the everyday usage the word "apricot" without any qualifiers usually refers to only this fruit. Trying to rename this article solely on scientific grounds from the field of botany misses the entire scope of the article. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:45, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Oppose for reasons given by Zzyzx11. It may be appropriate to list links to the other "apricots" in an appropriately explained section within this article, but the article is clearly about the fruit which is much more well known by its common name. Ivanvector (talk) 05:16, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:21, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
- Comment - That's a very good point that I hadn't thought of when proposing this move. Since we have pages for products as well as pages for the plants from which they come (Banana/Musa (genus), Coffee/Coffea), it would indeed make sense to have Prunus armeniaca as a separate page, and the taxobox should be removed from this page. I'm happy to withdraw my proposal. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 19:26, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Oppose - As stated by others, this is the primary topic and common name. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 05:43, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
Strongly Oppose Per WP:FLORA#Scientific versus common names - There are many examples of fruits and not referred to as genus Maurice07 (talk) 10:02, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
Strong oppose; however, create an article on the different species. Keep this one as the article on the fruit itself. Red Slash 02:30, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Supplementary oppose: It's normal for botanical info on a fruit-bearing plant to be included in the article for the fruit, as in the case of apple, pear, pineapple, etc., and I don't see it as being any different for apricot/Prunus armeniaca. In the cases Sminthopsis84 presented:

Musa is a genus of tropical trees which produce various fruit. Some varieties produce bananas which are a major commodity.
The Coffea plant and its fruit are major export goods for many economies, as the article discusses. Coffee is a drink which is the end product of processing the fruit.

In those cases separate articles are warranted but I don't think it is here. There's no policy against it, I just don't think there's enough significant information about the tree. Ivanvector (talk) 16:01, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose. The topic of this article is not any one particular species. It is about all species commonly referred to as "apricot". --B2C 17:19, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Other languages

There seems to be a problem with the related pages in other languages. It seems this page should be linked to the list shown on http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abricot, for instance. When attempting to edit, a message appears saying there is already a wikipedia page in English linked to the this one in French. I am a novice user and don't know how to solve this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.29.218.99 (talk) 10:19, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I've fixed it by using the Merge.js gadget on Wikidata. Graham87 14:40, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Cyanide content

The article says (added 4 years ago):

Kernels contain between 2.05% and 2.40% hydrocyanic acid

I thing that much cyanide would have been acutely toxic, and the figure contradicts the one in Apricot kernel:

On average, bitter apricot kernels contain about 5% amygdalin and sweet kernels about 0.9% amygdalin. These values correspond to 0.3% and 0.05% of cyanide.

So I believe the correct figures are 0.05% and 0.40% - the inflated figures are caused either by being incorrectly copied from the source, or by an actual typo in source. (Compare the apocryphal tale about the iron content in spinach.) - Mike Rosoft (talk) 05:40, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

I have replaced the reference with the one from Apricot kernel. For the record, the removed reference was: Medicinal and Poisonous Plants of Southern and Eastern Africa - Watt & Breyer-Brandwijk (1962) - Mike Rosoft (talk) 04:37, 11 July 2015 (UTC)