You may be right, Heavenly White from my tree, at 18 brix was good but not special. Arctic Jay/Arctic Star at the same brix were way better. I’ll have to try it in California, perhaps one day I will visit you in the summer 
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@Ahmad, sounds right, I like the 20 to 30 brix range for most of my fruit regardless of low or high acid. It would be fun to have a get together fruit fest here around late June next year. We have a pool and plenty of room to host 20 to 30 people or more. Here is a shot of the entertainment area last fall when we had an epic sunset here. We often, like almost every weekend entertain here, and nobody has to bring a dime. Most leave with a bunch of fresh fruit and veggies and a full stomach!
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Snow Queen is my favorite white nectarine. Don’t even know if supermarkets carry them anymore since they don’t label.
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@nil, Unfortunately they are no longer grown for market, as market fruit sells better with full red color. A lot of really great fruit is no longer grown for market, it’s a shame. You can probably still find them at some Farmer’s markets though. I plan on selling them in the future as well as a lot of other fruits and berries at our local Farmers market here in Orangevale.
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Butting into this conversation - without any nectarine news of my own . . .
I bought a bag of yellow nectarines at Sam’s Club a few weeks ago and noticed something that I’d never seen before. They were bagged and labeled prominently with their variety - and a note on the bag which said they would only be available for 2 weeks. They were Necta Zees or some other ‘Zee’. They were great nectarines - so I tried to get another bag. There were none of that variety left (2 week window was over) but this time the bags were labeled ‘Honey Lite’. So, I bought some. They did not have the zing that the previous variety had.
I’ll have to go back and see what varieties they get in, as the summer progresses.
I really appreciated knowing what variety I was buying - just out of curiosity and reading all the nectarine threads here on the forum.
Is anyone growing a ‘Zee’ nectarine variety?
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I bought Nectazee too a few weeks ago from the farmers market (which carries a lot of California fruits) and to me it was five out of ten. The key for picking nectarines at stores is to see sugar spots on them and to be dark in color; i.e. reddish black. If they started to soften and have a good aroma, then they are another step towards being great tasting. Fruitgrower’s Snow Queen photo above is perfect example of how a great nectarine should look like.
Some varieties (like the honey series) can be very firm but have high sugar content stored as complex carbohydrates (not sweet) that breakdown upon room temperature storage to release the much sweeter sugars, yet some others will have to have started softening before picking to be sweet.
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I’d entertain there, too!
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@PomGranny, I am growing Necta Zee here, it is my favorite of the Dwarf series nectarines, and the only one that I have kept around. It is usually a really good nectarine, however the dwarf trees way over set so it requires a lot of thinning, and if they don’t get thinned well they are small and not as good. The double pink blossoms are beautiful at bloom and my tree is about 5 feet tall at 10 years old. This along with Necta babe are the only Dwarf nectarines/peaches that I like that I have tried. I like some zing as long as the fruits are balanced with sweetness as well. I do not know if this would do good in zone 7 though, as most gardening is local. Glad to hear you and @Ahmad can purchase fruits from California.
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@fruitnut, those nectarines look great! I remember all the pictures you used to post of these fruits, it is why I am trialing them now. I can’t wait to try my Honey Blaze, they are looking really good, but not as good as the ones you have posted in the past. I think mine will look and taste better next year, as the graft is fairly small, but on a big tree. I should be picking them soon, they are still very firm now. Do you let them slightly soften before picking? I want to make sure I taste them at their prime. @Ahmad, your Honey Blaze above look great as well, nice you can buy that quality of fruit over there!
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I picked Honey Blaze from my tree last year when they got dark colored, almost reddish black on the side facing the sun. Some of them had started to soften, but some were a little firm, and I let them soften on the counter. Brix ranged from 20-25, and needless to say they were fantastic!
The ones I buy from the Farmers market are hit and miss, last year Honey Lite was great but Honey Royale was garbedge.
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Yeah, but it would be even better if they’d let you know if the fruit is a low-acid variety. CA grows crap fruit compared to what they are capable of and to me a 15brix low acid fruit tastes awful. Get it up to 20 and you have something, but the CA growers that do most of the production use way to much irrigation.
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I like mine slightly soft. But they can be good firm or overly soft. I can understand why some might not like them too soft.
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On the topic of SnowQueen, this was presented in the CRFG talk I mentioned earlier.
The presenter mentioned SnowQueen when good is really great, but susceptible to diseases (rot, if I remember correctly) many years. Not sure, if this is a Bay Area specific thing.
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@Ahmad, that is awesome!! 20 -25 brix nectarines in Delaware, looks like you have found the ultimate nectarine for your climate! I really think I will love this one, as your pics above show many sugarspotting and dark red, this is the sign of a truly great nectarine! @Fruitnut, thanks so much, I will wait till they get slightly soft, as this is how I prefer my nectarines as well, very slightly soft.
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@californicus I fee that slide is not a good representation for Snow Queen nectarine at least not in my experience. The SQN in my backyard was hit by lawn sprinklers from all sides and it somehow still thrived and produced some outstanding 20+ brix fruit in 2019. Very few split fruit. It was an excellent piece of fruit when the brix was 20+ and super low chill too! It should do well in CA but in other states, I don’t know…
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My tree was potted in a fabric pot last year, and that’s why I was able to hit such high brix (but I moved it to the ground this March, because I want bigger crop). Still, I have seen very high brix nectarines from in ground trees when we get a stretch of 3+ weeks without rain. A couple of years ago, I picked a 27 brix donut nectarine, that was almost too sweet for me.
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@californicus, The ones on the right remind me of the tree that got overspray from the lawn everyday, I only got small bites and fruit was just ok, so glad I grafted this one over. The ones I grafted looked nothing like either fruit above. It seems that this is a fruit that really responds really well to @Fruitnuts water stressing approach. It is too bad farmers have not tried this approach yet. I think they would be surprised by the results. My first poor tree got completely soaked with water every day, Its now a blood orange that does a lot better there. @Girly’s nectarines look a lot better than both of those pics above! The sugar spots and dark red color tell the real story.
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@Ahmad, very cool! I don’t grow any doughnuts but have purchased some pretty good ones from the Farmers market many years ago when we used to spend several hundred dollars a month there.This was the days before we grew our own fruit. Looks like water stressing is definitely the key to excellent fruits!
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@Ahmad - Can you share a little bit more about your experience with container growing nectarines please? Like fabric pot size, age of tree, watering frequency, root pruning, soil, etc. And what variety was the 27 brix donut nectarine?
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