I can’t remember if I measured the “ripe” Spring Snow. If I did, the brix would be around 8 or 9. They were so bloated and soaked with water.
I recalled unripe spring snow picked a few weeks earlier were sweeter and firm.
I read about Chinese people enjoying firm, under-ripe peaches. If there is one peach I can enjoy under-ripe, Spring Snow is it. In fact, I looks forward to eating them in such a stage next year. They tasted sweet and crunchy, the way I like it.
Only 8 or 9 for ripe Spring Snow? Seems a little low to be considered sweet, no?
They were so soaked with water due to non stop rain for months (not weeks). Any fruit in my yard could not be judged by their last year’s taste.
Unripe Spring Snow was quite sweet (before all the rain). I am convinced it will taste much better if we have a normal rain amount. It won’t be @Olpea ’s best white peach if it does not meet his high standard 
True. @alan seemed to not care for SS.
@Olpea and I have different tastes though, so I thought it was worth getting another point of reference. If I remember correctly, Mark doesn’t quite care for highly floral white peaches like White County, but I enjoy them. Then again, we both rate Blushingstar as “ok,” but for completely different reasons.
I think taste us so subjective. I like SS even when it was under ripe. I also like ripe SS in 2020.
Many people don’t like white peaches saying they lack that peachy flavor. I cannunderstand that. I ate Lady Nancy from my tree one year. It was just OK to me.
Most of the peaches you grow are yellow though right? Is SS the only white peach you have?
Beautiful peaches that probably reached about 7 brix when they began to soften and started to rot. I raked them off the tree to stop the rot from infecting wood.
They got very good size for a very early white peach, which I don’t care about but helps Olpea’s marketing. As far as the brix, I don’t believe it to be a high or low brix peach- all were worthless that ripened when it did. A couple weeks of continuous rain and grey skies previous to ripening will do that. I’ve come to the conclusion that lack of sun is as damaging or more damaging than too much water to brix content. .
Yes, right now I only have Spring Snow.
Used to have Lady Nancy (or maybe, White Lady?) but did not care for it.
That’s not my marketing. Certainly big peaches are eye poppers for customers, but flavor is by far a better marketing scheme for me.
I really wonder if we are comparing the same peach. My Spring Snow was a mislabeled peach from Adams County. I researched it thoroughly because at the time I purchased my first tree of “Spring Snow” from them, they had basically no other white peaches which fit that window.
Additionally, I looked looked up the patented description. The leaf glands, flower type, fruit appearance, ripening window, bac. spot tolerance, all fit Spring Snow to a tee.
But what doesn’t fit is the disappointment from some fellow fruit growers on this forum.
Because of that, I’m really starting to wonder if what I have is Spring Snow, in spite that it fits every other description.
As anyone knows, I’m not a novice. I’ve grown about 15 white peach varieties, about 15 nect. varieties, about 70 yellow varieties. I’ve tasted fruits from all these varieties, from my own orchard. In the far majority of cases, our taste testing has involved multiple years. What I’m calling Spring Snow is truly an outstanding white peach, every year it has produced.
It’s not just me either. I’ve had customers say the same. The problem is that it is a timid bearer in the best of years. I currently have probably about 15 trees of it, but don’t plan to plant any new ones anymore. Flavor is the number one trait for our peaches, but if the trees don’t produce, there is nothing to sell.
Because of this controversy, I’ll offer scionwood to any member who has had reasonable success at grafting peaches, for postage.
I don’t have time to offer scionwood to peach grafting novices, who are just learning to graft. Because peaches are one of the hardest fruits to graft, results for newbies are generally poor, which wastes my time and theirs. I communicated with someone yesterday who had never grafted, yet wanted some peach scionwood. Very likely a complete waste of time.
The analogy is somewhat overly aggressive, but it’s a bit like someone first learning algebra, and immediately wants to take a test in trig or calc.
What is the days relative to redhaven for your “Spring Snow”?
I had one white lady peach this past year and I thought it was outstanding. The brix was in the high teens. The only other peach on the small tree disappeared from a thief in the night.
The best White Lady and Lady Nancy (to me at least) can be very sweet, but they aren’t what I would consider to be aromatic or floral. Snow Beauty is probably the most floral of the white fleshed Zaigler peaches.
Which makes their large size good for marketing- I didn’t say it was your exclusive concern. I realize that taste is much more important to you but I’ve noticed that many of the peaches you grow tend to reach a large size. Maybe it is just the reduction in need to thin that pleases you then- or coincidence. The one remarkable thing about Spring Snow here last year was its size for such an early peach- do your trees bare large fruit?
Varieties that set light crops have an advantage in developing quality- probably especially early ripening ones. Spring Snow set a heavy crop for me last season, but I always thin my earliest ripening varieties first- a similarly sized peach that ripens early may need to be thinned proportionately more than one that ripens later. Flavor May tends to require very little thinning here and its quality has been good every year I’ve harvested it (4 in total). .
Spring Snow set its first crop for me this last season, and I cut down the tree instead of giving it one more season- mainly because I don’t care that much for even good white peaches and already have two excellent white nectarines to harvest almost in its season as well as a yellow one. All of them got up much more brix than Spring Snow last year. Maybe SS ripened a week sooner and that’s what destroyed its flavor. Have you ever had relentless rain and cool, cloudy weather leading up to the harvest of this variety in the years you’ve grown it?
My yellow peaches in the SS season were all crap and they can be quite good when the weather accommodates them- Harrow Diamond and Desiree.
I would look to how the current SS carried by ACN performs in KS compared to the one you grow. I still have a tree or two in my nursery and will gladly send you some wood.
Splice grafts worked very well for me with peaches last season, and I’m hoping that my prior difficulty was mostly about the way I used to store my wood- tightly packed in plastic that caused buds to rot. It probably wasn’t all about timing because I grafted them a number of times in different weather conditions during spring.
Splices require very little practice to master as long as you understand the importance of matching up cambium.
My Spring Snow ripens -21 here,
No. It’s not a large peach. It’s smaller than Earlystar (ripens at the same time) and also smaller than Harrow Diamond (ripens at same time). Sizewise , it’s between RichMay (aka Flavor Rich) and Harrow Diamond. I would put the size about that of Clayton.
Yes, most years. In those years Harrow Diamond is a pretty poor peach. Sometimes it’s been so poor tasting I don’t even sell them as number ones (seriously). Earlystar is slightly better tasting but only fair. And a big part of those sometimes go for seconds.
I’ve never had that with Spring Snow. That’s what’s so amazing. It’s a white peach, which ripens in the worst part of the year for me, and still produces phenomenal tasting peaches (for a white peach).
Lady Nancy (a very late peach) can be an excellent white peach (though won’t sugar up in poor weather here) but Spring Snow always tastes great despite crappy late June weather. I would rate Spring Snow above Lady Nancy flavorwise, although the taste is completely different. Spring Snow is definitely sweeter. It’s lineage includes a white nect and O’Henry peach. The peach you describe sounds more like Early Red Fre (which I also got from Adams). Early Red Fre is a horrid tasting, but very productive peach.
One other identifiable characteristic of Spring Snow is that it’s very globose. In other words, most peaches are slightly oblong and have a slight point at the end. These are very round, even at the end. They are like O’henry peaches in that respect. Earlystar are also pretty round.
We are not talking about the same peach. Spring snow has never set a heavy crop. Even in years where other trees had so many peaches, the trees looked like they were groaning, Spring Snow happily set it’s very light crop, which required almost no thinning. Most people wouldn’t have even considered thinning, but we always thin one of the twins when two peaches set at the same node. We also break off one of the peaches when there are doubles at thinning time, or thin doubles entirely. It sets a lighter crop than Rich May. Rich May can set a fairly heavy crop which requires thinning, but most years it was easily affected by frosts. Spring Snow never sets a full crop, in even the best of years.
It’s possible that Adams is selling something else as Spring Snow, or I simply don’t have Spring Snow. Either way I’m fairly certain we are not comparing the same peach. The thing about it is, Adams has a pic Spring Snow on their Website, which looks like my Spring Snow. But they may have gotten that pic from some stock pic from Zaiger’s company or someplace else.
Here is that pic.
Notice how the peaches are a double red. There are is no yellow background on these peaches. The peaches are very globose.
However, just to show how much mislabeling there is out there, I did a quick image search of Spring Snow peach in the internet. There are lots of folks who think they have Spring Snow, but don’t.
Here are some:
These peaches were sold as Spring Snow from a commercial peach orchard in CA.
Definitely not Spring Snow.
Here’s a pic of another peach orchard who is advertising some other peach as Spring Snow.
Too much of a point at the apex and ours have never had near that much red pigment in the flesh.
Here’s a pic of supposed Spring Snow which doesn’t look at all like Spring Snow with all the yellow in the background. But it’s possible that since they are from an organic orchard, they bagged the peaches, which would strongly inhibit coloring. But, imo, it’s unlikely a commercial orchard bagged. More likely it’s a mislabel.
Here is a pic from Bill Shane of Spring Snow.
Again notice the double red color and no virtually no point at the apex. That’s pretty much how our peaches look, but maybe not that much red pigment in the flesh.
Here is the patent. The Spring Snow I grow matches the patent, except for growth pattern and perhaps size.
Ziager describes the growth pattern of the tree as upright, but I would describe it as spreading, but that can be pretty subjective. I would say my Spring Snow is not as spreading as Redhaven, but I wouldn’t classify it as upright, like an Earlystar or a Contender.
Also he describes the peach as large. I wouldn’t describe these peaches as large.
Everything else matches the description.
I purchased a Spring Snow from Stark this year. Any idea if they have the real deal?
The only other white peach that should ripen that early would be manon, also globose, all red, clingstone. I don’t think manon was ever patented. It came out of the “Riviera Breeding Program in the Provence Region of southeastern France.”
Do you get split pits with your SS?
Some but very few open split pits (open split pits are where there develops an opening at the stem end. We don’t sell those. Our Spring Snow gets a few unopened split pits. Probably less than other early peaches.
Well…the picture on their webpage description of Spring Snow looks right. Notice how there is no point at the apex end of the peach. Very globose. My Spring Snow is a bit darker red, but that could be a photography thing. Plus even though my Spring Snows are very red, there is some variability in color from peach to peach.
One thing that doesn’t match is the leaves in the photo. My Spring Snow is a definite stand out in terms of the foliage, which is absolutely perfect. The variety has the best foliage of any in the orchard, I think. Dark green and very pretty.
The foliage in the pic looks way more rough. Lots of spotting on the leaves, and shothole. I grow lots of varieties which look like that (despite an intense spray program) but Spring Snow isn’t one of them.
Lastly, be aware that Stark bros. send out some mislabels. I wouldn’t recommend the nursery. I have a friend who got screwed pretty big by Starks.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend Stark, but it’s hard to ignore free shipping if you only want one or two trees and the rolling promos. They often don’t send what they advertise as far as sizes, and rootstock information isn’t always available…
I think the chances of a mislabel are just about the same with any nursery. @Olpea’s Spring Snow (or what we all think is a SS) came from an mislabel from ACN (if I understand correctly).
Spring Snow should be relatively easy to identify. It’s an early peach -21 to -25 before Redhaven. It’s large showy blossoms, reniform glands, clingstone, globose fruit (usually flattened), 70%+ red fruit.
Manon should be the only other white peach that shares the same ripening window and has been commonly seen in nursery trade (ACN dropped Manon this year). Anything other white peach this early would have to be either mutation or something rare enough that Arboretum would sell.