Apricorns are pretty neat little fruits. They have two functions for ingame: creating Poke Balls and making Aprijuice. Both of these are useful in their respective areas of gameplay. But Apricorns are only available once per day, one for each Apricorn tree. Just how do you collect them?

Marking Their Locations

The trees are found in many areas. You can find one just about anywhere in Johto and quite a few spots in Kanto. How will you remember them all?Apricorns
Well, there's this great function in HGSS for the map application on your PokeGear that allows you to mark locations. When you first mark locations, if you're finding them on your own, travel everywhere in each region and mark every city and route that happens to have them. The marking function even gives an Apricorn marker, just so you know exactly why it's there!
If you're hoping for a list of places to find them, you're in luck. Here's where the Apricorn trees are found:

Red- Routes 37, 44, and Fuchsia City
Yellow- Routes 8, 42, 46, and Violet City
Blue- Routes 26, 36, 37, and Pewter City
Green- Routes 11, 29, 30, 35, 39, 42, 45, and 46
Pink- Routes 2, 30, 33, and 42
White- Route 38, Azalea Town, and Pewter City
Black- Routes 1, 31, 33, 37, and 43

Another place to obtain Apricorns is in the Pokeathlon Dome, where you use your hard-earned points from Pokeathlons as the currency. They only have certain Apricorns on certain days, however.

Sunday- Red, Blue, Black
Monday- Red, Blue, Green
Tuesday- Yellow, Pink, White
Wednesday- Blue, Pink, Black
Thursday- Yellow, Pink, White
Friday- Red, Yellow, Green
Saturday- Green, White, Black

Green is the most common type, and after that, Black. You may want to just buy rarer Apricorns such as Red from the Dome, as opposed to common types.

Making Poke Balls

Making Poke BallsThe one thing everyone knows about Apricorns is that they can be used to make unique types of Poke Balls. Just take 'em to Kurt; he'll take about a day to make them but it's well worth the wait.
Each type of Apricorn is turned into a different type of Poke Ball. You may want to stock up on Apricorns before giving them to Kurt, as there's no such thing as too many Poke Balls!

Red- Level Ball - Increases catchrate for Pokemon of a lower level than the Pokemon currently battling
Yellow- Moon Ball - Increases catchrate of Pokemon who evolve by using the Moon Stone
Blue- Lure Ball - Increases catchrate while fishing
Green- Friend Ball - Caught Pokemon will be friendlier (friendship is set to 200)
Pink- Love Ball - Increases catchrate for Pokemon of the same species but opposite gender of the Pokemon currently battling
White- Fast Ball - Increases catchrate of Pokemon with a base Speed stat of at least 100
Black- Heavy Ball - Increases catchrate of heavy Pokemon

The most useful ingame are usually the Lure, Friend, Fast, and Heavy Balls. Also, they're very pleasing to the eyes as opposed to the plain old Poke, Great, Ultra, and Master Balls.

Making Aprijuice

The other function of Apricorns is making Aprijuice. Aprijuice helps out your Pokemon in its Performance stats for the Pokeathlon, much like Poke Blocks for Contests and Poffins for Super Contests. Each Apricorn contributes to certain stats, except for the White Apricorn, which does nothing on its own.

Red- Increases Power.
Yellow- Increases Stamina.
Blue- Increases Skill.
Green- Increases Jump.
Pink- Increases Speed.
Black- Increases Power and Stamina.

Also like Poke Blocks and Poffins, Pokemon will only like certain types of Aprijuice based on their natures. Each Performance stat is related to specific flavors and in turn, specific battling stats.

Power- Spicy - Attack
Stamina- Sour - Defense
Skill- Dry - Sp. Attack
Jump- Bitter - Sp. Defense
Speed- Sweet - Speed

Each nature affects a Pokemon's tastes; the stat that is boosted by the nature is what the Pokemon likes, and the stat the nature lowers is what the Pokemon dislikes. HGSS luckily shows you which nature does what. On the stats screen of a Pokemon's summary, the stat highlighted in yellow is the boosted stat, while the blue highlight is the lowered stat.

Conclusion

Apricorns add yet another fun layer on Pokemon, especially now that they contribute to a side game. With so many uses for one little fruit, it'll be an important item to grab on your adventures in Generation IV. Be sure not to miss out on such a nifty item!