Apricot Season

Apricots are in season from November through to early February, with peak supply in December and January when Victoria's Murray Valley, South Australia's Riverland, and Tasmania all come in together. They don't store, and you won't find a decent one outside summer. Outside those months, the shelves are clear.

Apricots are primarily a summer crop in Australia.

Apricots need cold winters to trigger dormancy and hot, dry summers to set fruit. As one of the earliest stone fruits to flower, they're also one of the most vulnerable to late frost and rain, which splits ripe fruit. Grafted trees take three to four years to reach commercial production, bearing on short spurs that last two to three years and fruiting reliably for 20 to 30 years. Apricots don't hold the way apples do. Once ripe they need to move within a day or two, which is why a farmers market fruit picked 48 hours ago is worth more than a hard, pale one shipped green from interstate.

Apricots originate in Central Asia and have been cultivated for at least 4,000 years, arriving in Australia with European settlement. As Acta Horticulturae (Gathercole, 1985) notes, production has always been concentrated along the Murray River system, where continental winters and hot, dry summers suit the crop. By 1940 SA's Riverland alone had 325,000 apricot trees, mainly for drying, according to PIRSA's History of Agriculture. Today Victoria leads at 55.8% of national production, South Australia at 22.8% and Tasmania at 14.1%, with growing centred on Victoria's Murray Valley, SA's Riverland around Renmark and Loxton, and Tasmania's Derwent Valley.

Australian apricot production has been in long-term decline, peaking at around 9,000 tonnes in 2018/19 before falling to 2,742 tonnes worth $10 million in 2024/25, according to Hort Innovation. Much of the decline reflects the collapse of the dried apricot sector against cheaper imports. Fresh production now dominates. To reverse the trend, PIRSA/SARDI ran a 35-year breeding program at the Loxton Research Centre, releasing 17 new varieties in 2018. The FlavorCot and TastiCot lines target fresh markets and the RiverCot lines target drying. Fresh exports were 349 tonnes in 2024/25. Imports were just 29 tonnes.