Only as grafted on other varieties and I haven’t had a chance to check on any.
Heath is an unusual fruit that you probably like because it is low acid, non-luscious and almost tastes tropical. Victoria is your full flavored, juicy, with some acid, yellow- so more my cup of tea, but Heath is more interesting. We were eating Victorias from low fruit on a crowded nursery tree. I’m curious how they will taste from the well exposed branches of a young tree in my orchard this year that are properly thinned and open to light.
I have Spring Snow ripening at -20 and Sliver Gem at -15. My notes change from year to year along with varied ripening from year to year. I typically will only move a ripening number by one day every year so I don’t write down some huge anomaly. In other words, if a peach (say Harrow Beauty) ripens three days earlier in one year, than is reported on my chart, I’ll only back it up one day, instead of three. If it’s still early the next year, I’ll back it up another day. It seems to stabilize things a bit, just moving a day at a time. I mention because my ripening times may change by a few days from year to year.
I’m not 100% sure my Spring Snow is actually Spring Snow. I’m about 90% sure. The original tree was actually received as an accident from Adams County. It was supposed to be a Galaxy as a trial in 2012, and was planted in the appropriate spot for it’s ripening time. I noticed it ripened more than 3 weeks earlier than it should have.
It obviously wasn’t a Galaxy (I planted a couple real Galaxy trees last year) but for a while I didn’t know what the variety was. I learned Adams sold Spring Snow at that time, which fit the window this peach ripened. I further looked up the bloom type and the leaf glands and everything matched my one tree, including the appearance of the fruit. The exception is that Ziager lists it as a large peach, but I wonder if he is comparing it to other very early peaches. I’ve never seen a large peach this early, and I doubt anyone else has either. The only large early peach I’ve seen is Glenglo, and it ripens a week later. So I’m somewhat skeptical of the large fruit size in the description.
Ziager also describes it as sub-acid, which I guess could fall within the flavor profile of my peach. But it is so heavily perfumed and so sweet with a unique taste, I would hate to attribute such a disparaging remark to it.
Around here, Spring Snow is the inferior peach. The skin is bitter and wrinkled. The taste sours easily. Goes from rock hard to rubbery to mealy. Taste not so good. By the time it sweetens up, it starts to taste soft and sour (alcoholic)/ overripe.
Sugar May here is an excellent super sweet subacid with true white peach flavor. It is melting and luscious. The only drawback is the very inner portion of the flesh (maybe a milimeter thick) remains hard and clings to the pit- even when the rest of the flesh has turned perfectly ripe. I just cut this peach into quarters and carve off the hard sliver of flesh near the pit.
A few hours after you posted about Spring Snow, I was in the grocery store, checking out the variety names on the boxes and noticed that they had it in stock. I got some to try, in addition to the usual nectarines.
Spring Snow definitely has a strong, pleasant smell. The usual rose, plus something more. But, the flavor wasn’t all that strong. Not bad, but a bit of a let down after such a nice smell.
The Polar Ice nectarines on the other hand were very good. Maybe not the best ever from an idealized mid-season sample, but not all that far off. I didn’t get the name of the yellow nectarines, but they weren’t as good (not enough sugar).
It’s too bad that Polar Ice is a propitiatory variety, otherwise it would be a good one to try.
And Heath has an denser texture, which I liked. A bit like the TangOs.
We’ll need the sun to come out at some point for that
I value late yellow peaches too- in fact, I would have gotten a Victoria if they were available when I got the HC. But, the only other late peach was Carnival, which is even later than HC (about a week later, per DWN).
Speaking of late varieties, anyone tried Snow Giant or September Snow? ACN (the place to get Victoria) has them listed as the same or later (respectively).
One other note on my Heath Cling- it has a decent amount of leaf curl. The most of any tree in my yard, but probably not enough to impact growth much. I’ve seen it before on young trees, but have very little (if any) on my older trees, so it may out-grow it. Normally I pick all the affected leaves off and dispose in the garbage .
Never tried Snow Giant but researched it a few years back. My notes from various sources.
Snow Giant. on Lovell from Adams. Or on either Lovell or Citation from Sanhedrin. Zaiger introduction. Huge sweet tasty white subacid melting freestone peaches says DWN. Beautiful red/ hot pink on creamy white. In some years under certain conditions it fails to color-ripen properly and retains a greenish cast. Moderately susceptible to bac spot. Can get brown rot. Brix ranges 12- 17. Vigorous, upright & productive. Fruit keeps a few weeks in frig. Des Layne had posted pics when he was in charge of the Clemson program. Estimated ripe approx Sept 11- 25 in Mid-Atlantic? Consider getting if White Diamond (or China Pearl) don’t pan out.
Bob, I had September Snow and found it to be bland tasting and with lots of bac. spot issues and ended up taking it out.
I am generally not a fan of white peaches and thus may be offering a biased opinion.
I also yanked out China Pearl which many say is sweet but I found to be on the bland side as well.
I’m positive it’s not Sugar May. Sugar May ripened a few days later than what I’m calling Spring Snow. And Sugar May had pretty bad bac. spot issues.
I mentioned I was taking my Sugar May trees out a couple years ago and you requested wood before I gave them the axe. I don’t know if the Sugar May fruit you’ve tried is from my scionwood, but if it is, I’m glad it does well for you in your area. Here it was a total loser on flavor.
The more I think about it, the more I think my good peach is Spring Snow. Even the winter tenderness in the descriptions seems to match what I’ve seen. I wonder if part of the reason why Spring Snow isn’t tasting good for you and Bob is that you guys are trying it from the grocery store, which of course is anyone’s guess on how the tree was managed and how the fruit was harvested. This peach has a wonderful flavor and is very sweet for me. I’ve grown about 15 different white peaches and this one ranks near the very top. If I were forced to pick a favorite, this might be it.
The pic of Spring Snow from the Adams County page looks like mine. Double red and very round.
That was my experience with September Snow as well.
I don’t doubt that has a strong impact. It did have a wonderful smell, which matches what you said earlier about it being “heavily perfumed”. The ones from the store were a bit more pointed than the ones in the ACN pic.
Thanks for the pic Bob. Those look like the patent pics of Spring Snow, but mine looked more like the Adams County pic. I think mine were all red, but I’m working from memory. Interestingly the ones in the link Matt posted from Family Tree Farmers also show a double red globose peach. It could be the ones in your hand showing yellow were picked a bit too early, as is the way with wholesale growers. As you mention mine don’t have much of a point on the apex end (but some of them may have had a slight point like yours). Not much of a suture either, like yours. Mine had a very globose shape. Yours show to be pretty small peaches, which has been my experience. The patent says the tree produces 3" peaches, but very few of mine were ever that big. If I can remember, I’ll try to post a photo to this thread when mine start to ripen.
No. I wish. Last year’s grafts failed, so I planted an entire Arctic Glo tree this spring. It is still small.
Scenic View Orchard of Sabillasville, Md has them. They’ll be ripe and sitting at the farmer’s market soon enough.
The skin is tough, and they are hopelessly clingstone (and messy to eat), but the taste is sublime.
Arctic Glo will turn solid dark red on the surfaces exposed to the sun when ripe.
After ripening a few days on the counter, the flesh becomes explosively sweet, juicy and tangy. There is some red mottled in with the otherwise white flesh. It has in-your-face flavor and kicks off the season with a bang.
@Drew51 has been having success fruiting them in Michigan, so yours might do really well.
Plant patents (including peaches) expire 20 years after the date of filing of the application, not to be confused with the date the patent was granted.
You can look up any patented varieties with this USPTO search tool. Remember to put “pp” before the patent number.
Most of the time you can just google the variety with the word “patent” and pull up the patent that way. That doesn’t always work, but generally will at least give you a website with the patent number of that variety.
If that doesn’t do it, try googling the variety with “pp” with the quotes. That’s the shorthand a lot of nurseries use for plant patent. That will generally give you at least one website where you can find the patent number. Once you have the patent number, you can plug that into the uspto search tool.
Hey Scott, Think you can show a quick video example of this at some point this month? I’d be interested.
Didn’t get the whole ‘wrapping one direction will make the scion slip’ thing you were saying… but I have a situation where I may have a bit larger peach rootstock so I’d like to make sure Im going to wrap it up correctly.
