Israeli apricots in March?

Good news for apricots lovers in Israel: the short availability season of the summer fruit will be extended and apricots could be seen on supermarkets shelves as early as March. This will be made possible by a return of apricot orchards to Ein Yahav, an agricultural moshav in the Arava Valley located in the southeastern part of Israel, some 40 years after the last orchards there were replaced.

The Arava Valley is a desert region; hot and dry year round and receiving very little rain. This makes for comfortable growing conditions which will allow the fruit to ripen during the winter months and be available at the turn of spring.

The first settlers in the region planted orchards of several varieties, but the trees struggled to acclimate to the high salinity of the water and were slowly replaced for greenhouse crops until there were no commercial orchards left.

According to Rami Sade, an agronomist at the Ein Yahav council, researchers and growers have been able to develop varieties of trees that can cope with the saline water using stilts. And so in the coming year, 5 hectares of apricot trees will be planted in Ein Yahav with subsequent plantings to follow. Together with the apricot plantings, peach, prune and nectarine trees are set to be planted to take advantage of the conditions in the region in a similar way.

Israeli consumers are set to benefit from the unique climate conditions of the Arava Valley, which will allow growers to get traditional summer fruits to supermarkets months earlier then fruit from other parts of the country. The expansion of the orchards in coming years will also open up the possibility of exporting fruit to Europe, where the early fruit would be welcome. This would be a boon for growers as well as a way to supplant the vegetables they grow now for which demand abroad has dwindled.