This is our first year growing Snowsweet. According to Bob Purvis, who we obtained scion wood from to graft these, “U of MN introduction about 2005, fruits large, crisp, very sweet and low acid, flesh is fine-grained, juicy, does not brown when cut. Ripens mid to late September and keeps for at least 4 months.” Given that Bob wrote this upon his experience growing it in Homedale, Idaho, Snowsweet will likely ripen in Missoula late September, and if grown in Eastern Montana, early to mid October. We’re sorry we don’t have more personal experiences yet regarding flavor. We try to personalize all of our descriptions and not just copy and paste, as is so often the case with many nursery descriptions, but we don’t have experience yet with Snowsweet. So as soon as we get more info on it from our own experience, then we will provide updates.

In the meantime, we have also not grown either of its parents, Sharon and Connell Red. In terms of its hardiness, University of Minnesota lists it as comparable to Honeycrisp and Haralson. However, this is not too helpful because we have found Haralson to be not a whole lot hardier than Honeycrisp, but enough to make a big difference. We have found Honeycrisps to have significant winter damage where the frost damage got to the trunk when the tree saw -46F in the mountains of Livingston, MT. And if frost damage gets to the trunk then this is super problematic. Haralson, meanwile, did not get any damage from this event. Perhaps there could have been other factors at play but since we have observed this, we think that that upper limit to Honeycrisp is only about -40F and possibly -45F if protected or in the right spot, whereas Haralson’s is likely closer -50F. In Montana, these little differences can have an outsized impact! So we will report back but to be conservative, we will say that Snowsweet is hardy to at least -40F.

All of our Spring 2025 Snowsweet is grafted onto Bud 118 rootstock, which is hardy to -50F or more. Ed Schultz has reported zero cold injury on his Bud 118 rootstocks after his orchard saw -47F.