SnowSweet Apples Fresh From The Orchard

They brown, but far more slowly than a normal apple — slowly enough that it changes what you can do with them. The plant patent describes the flesh as “unusually resistant to oxidative browning”, and that single trait is the reason the variety exists as a named release rather than a research number.

In a home kitchen, sliced SnowSweet left uncovered on a plate typically still looks white and appetising after an hour or two, where a McIntosh or a Cortland would have gone tan in fifteen or twenty minutes. It is not permanent. Leave slices out all day and they will eventually dull. But for a lunchbox, a salad, a cheese board or a platter you cut before guests arrive, the difference is the whole ballgame.

Cut-apple browning is an enzyme reaction. Slicing ruptures cells and lets an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase meet the phenolic compounds and the oxygen it was previously kept away from. The product of that reaction is the brown pigment. Every apple has the machinery; varieties differ in how much of each ingredient they carry and how fast the reaction runs.

SnowSweet inherited a combination that runs slowly. The University of Minnesota did not engineer it — they found it in a 1970 seedling and selected for it. That is worth stating plainly, because it is the most common misunderstanding about this apple.

No. SnowSweet is a conventional cross, made in 1970 between Sharon and Connell Red and given the breeding number AE 7022. The seedling was selected in 1983 and propagated by grafting, the way every named apple variety is.

The distinction matters because a different non-browning apple — the Arctic® apples — is genetically engineered, with the browning enzyme silenced directly. SnowSweet arrived at a similar result by ordinary plant breeding and a long wait. If you are avoiding GMO produce, SnowSweet is not one.

Expect an hour or two uncovered at room temperature before any noticeable dulling, and considerably longer in the refrigerator or in a closed container. Cold and reduced air exposure both slow the reaction further.

Two practical notes. A sharp knife bruises fewer cells than a dull one, so it browns less. And skin-on wedges hold better than peeled slices, because most of the cut surface is protected.

For a plate you will eat within an hour or two, no — that is the point of the variety. For a fruit salad that needs to sit through a whole afternoon party, a light toss of lemon or a brief soak in salted water still helps, and does no harm.

Skipping the lemon has a real advantage beyond convenience: SnowSweet has modest acidity of its own, and lemon juice noticeably changes how it tastes. Leaving it off lets the apple’s rich, slightly buttery character come through.

SnowSweet is the variety specifically bred and named for it, and in our experience it is the clearest performer. RubyFrost is also notably slow, for a different reason — Cornell describes it as a good source of vitamin C, and ascorbic acid actively interferes with the browning reaction. Cortland has a long-standing reputation for it too.

At the other end, McIntosh and most soft early apples brown fast. If you are building a platter and want it to still look good in an hour, SnowSweet is the safest pick on this farm.

No, and this is a common mix-up. Arctic® apples are genetically engineered versions of existing varieties — Arctic Golden, Arctic Granny, Arctic Fuji — in which the browning enzyme has been switched off directly.

SnowSweet is its own variety, produced by crossing two apples in 1970 and waiting thirteen years to see what the seedling did. Same visible result, entirely different route, and SnowSweet tastes nothing like a Golden Delicious or a Granny Smith.

Sweet first, with a slight tart balance underneath and a distinctly rich, almost buttery quality that growers reach for again and again when describing it. It is not a sugar-bomb apple and it is not a sharp one. The University of Minnesota’s own description is “sweet with a slight tart balance and rich overtones”, which is about as accurate as four words get.

That is why it reads as sweet and mellow rather than bright.

Sweet, clearly — but with enough acid to stop it being cloying. It sits firmly in the sweet half of the spectrum, sweeter in balance than Honeycrisp and a long way from Granny Smith.

What people usually notice more than the sweetness is the texture and the richness. Several tasters describe a savoury or buttery note that most modern apples do not have.

Firm to crisp, yes, but fine-grained rather than explosive.

The texture is dense and fine, so it slices cleanly and the slices hold their shape. That, combined with the slow browning, is exactly why it ends up on so many salads and cheese boards.

Medium to large and oblate — wider than it is tall, often with light ribbing and a slightly lumpy outline. The University of Minnesota records a 70 to 85 percent bronze-red blush over a green-yellow background, so the colour is more dusky and burnished than the bright fire-engine red of a modern club apple.

The patent gives the diameter as 7.1 to 7.9 cm, or 2.8 to 3.1 inches. Inside, the flesh is strikingly white — which is what the name is about.

Two things compound. First, the flesh starts genuinely white rather than the cream or pale yellow of many varieties — the patent distinguishes it from its own seed parent Sharon on exactly that point. Second, it resists browning, so it stays white after you cut it.

Either trait alone would be unremarkable. Together they are the variety’s entire commercial identity, and the reason it was named SnowSweet rather than given a number.

Moderately. It is juicy enough to be a pleasant eating apple but it is not a fountain — the flesh is fine-grained and dense rather than loose and dripping. If bursting juice is your priority, Honeycrisp and RubyFrost both deliver more of it.

What SnowSweet gives you instead is substance. One of the University’s own tasting notes reads simply: “This apple has substance. It’s satisfying.”

The skin is moderate — thinner and less chewy than a RubyFrost or a Rome, thicker than a McIntosh. Most people eat it without thinking about it.

Because the flesh stays white, skin-on wedges look particularly good on a platter: you get the bronze-red rim against genuinely snow-white flesh, and it holds that contrast for an hour or more.

Early to mid October — roughly two weeks after Honeycrisp, which is the reference point the University of Minnesota itself uses. The patent gives early-to-mid October for east central Minnesota, and our own picking here runs on much the same schedule.

This corrects something this page used to say. An earlier version of it claimed availability “from late September”, which was simply wrong; SnowSweet is a late-season apple, not an early one. See Harvest Times for where this season actually stands.

Honestly: 60 to 80 days in common storage at 34 to 37°F, which is the figure in the plant patent. That is roughly two to two and a half months, and it puts SnowSweet in the short-to-moderate keeping class — nothing like GoldRush at seven months or EverCrisp at five or six.

An earlier version of this page described SnowSweet as having “good storage capabilities” and being available through the winter. It does not, and it is not. It is an autumn apple that eats beautifully for a couple of months and then gives up. We would rather tell you that before you buy a case.

Refrigerate them. A crisper drawer or a loosely closed perforated bag holds humidity without trapping ethylene, and cold is what buys you the full two months. On a kitchen counter you have maybe a week before the texture starts to go.

Keep them away from bananas, avocados and tomatoes, all of which produce ethylene and will push the apples along faster. And pull out any bruised or split fruit: one softening apple will take the rest of the bag with it.

Picking starts in early to mid October and the eating season runs from then into December, occasionally into January depending on the season and how the fruit was handled. It is a genuine autumn apple.

If SnowSweet is not listed above, the crop is either still on the tree or already finished for the year. Harvest Times shows where the season stands and Ready to Ship shows what is leaving the farm today.

Yes, for cooking. Peel, core, slice and freeze in a single layer before bagging, and they will hold for months for pies, crisps and sauce. The slow-browning trait even means you can skip the usual lemon dip before freezing.

What freezing will not preserve is the fresh-eating texture. Ice crystals rupture the cells, so thawed slices come back soft. Freeze SnowSweet for the baking pan, not for the lunchbox.

Not meaningfully. Unlike GoldRush, which is famously sour at harvest and comes into balance over months, SnowSweet is already balanced when it comes off the tree. It has nowhere to improve to.

What it does in storage is slowly lose firmness. So with this variety, earlier is better — the opposite of the advice we give for a long-keeping winter apple.

It depends almost entirely on rootstock, not on the variety. On a standard or vigorous rootstock expect something in the 18 to 25 foot range; on a semi-dwarf, 12 to 15 feet; on a dwarfing rootstock such as M.9 or a Geneva series, 8 to 10 feet and fruit within two or three years.

The variety itself is described in the plant patent as moderate in vigour, with a habit that is somewhat pendant and open. That matters more than the height number: an open, slightly weeping tree is easier to light and easier to pick than an upright one, and it needs less aggressive thinning cuts.

Neither, and this page used to say otherwise. The plant patent records moderate vigour and a somewhat pendant and open growth habit — a relaxed, spreading tree, not a strongly upright one.

An earlier version of this page described SnowSweet as vigorous with an upright habit reaching 15 to 20 feet. That was not right, and because search engines had picked the sentence up it was being quoted back to people researching the tree. We have corrected it to what the breeders actually recorded.

SnowSweet is a normal diploid, so it is not self-fertile but any compatible apple or flowering crabapple blooming at the same time will do. Bloom begins around 5 to 9 May in Minnesota, which puts it in the mid-season bloom group.

Good partners include Honeycrisp, Zestar!, Keepsake, Gala, Cortland or a Dolgo or Snowdrift crabapple. Avoid pairing it only with a triploid such as Mutsu or Jonagold, since those produce poor pollen and cannot fertilise anything.

No. Like almost every apple, it needs pollen from a different variety to set a crop. One compatible tree within about a hundred feet is enough, and a flowering crabapple is the most reliable pollen source of all because its bloom window is long.

If you only have room for one tree, a multi-grafted tree or a nearby neighbour’s apple will do the job. Bees will travel further than most people expect.

USDA zone 4a. That is the figure the University of Minnesota publishes, and coming out of a Minnesota programme it is a well-tested number rather than an optimistic one. It handles winters that kill many commercial varieties outright.

Cold hardiness is the through-line of the whole Minnesota programme. Honeycrisp, Zestar!, Keepsake and SnowSweet all came out of the same effort to produce apples worth eating that survive a northern winter.

Yes — the patent notes it bears fruit annually with good fruit adherence, meaning it holds its crop on the branch rather than dropping it before you get there. Both traits are worth having.

Annual bearing is a real advantage over the biennial habit of some varieties, where a heavy year is followed by almost nothing. Thin the crop in a heavy season anyway; it improves size and protects the following year.

From a licensed nursery. SnowSweet is a patented variety (USPP 19,446) with the trademark held by the Regents of the University of Minnesota, so trees are propagated under licence — Bailey Nurseries, Stark Bro’s and a number of regional nurseries carry it.

Honeycrisp.com is an orchard, not a nursery: we ship the fruit, not the trees. If you are here for apples to eat, see Ready to Ship.

You can grow a tree from a SnowSweet seed, but it will not be a SnowSweet. Apples do not come true from seed — every pip is a genetic shuffle of two parents, and the seedling will be its own new variety, usually a disappointing one.

That is exactly the point of the SnowSweet story: the University of Minnesota sowed the 1970 cross, waited, and found one seedling worth keeping out of the whole planting. Every SnowSweet tree since is a graft of that one 1983 tree.

It is a Minnesota apple, so it is built for cold — hardy, productive, and it holds its fruit well on the tree.

Give it full sun, decent drainage and another apple variety nearby to pollinate it, and it will look after you.

Anything where the apple is visible and has to sit for a while. Salads, cheese and charcuterie boards, fruit platters, lunchboxes, sliced apples with dip — every use where a normal apple would have gone brown before anyone ate it.

It is a good fresh-eating apple in its own right, and a decent cooking apple. But if you never cut it in advance you are paying for a trait you are not using; for pure out-of-hand snacking there are cheaper apples that taste just as good.

They are decent, not exceptional. The flesh is firm enough to hold a recognisable slice through a pie, and the fine grain bakes evenly.

Our usual advice is to blend. SnowSweet for structure and sweetness, plus something sharp — Northern Spy, RubyFrost or Granny Smith — for the flavour to push back. A little lemon in the filling does the same job.

Good as part of a pie, rarely great alone. The slices hold their shape, which is half of what a pie apple needs, but a single-variety SnowSweet pie tends to taste flat and over-sweet because there is not enough acid behind it.

Two-thirds SnowSweet to one-third something tart is a reliable ratio. If you want a single-variety pie, use Northern Spy — the classic answer — or GoldRush.

This is the variety’s best use, and the reason it exists. Slice it thin, throw it in, and it will still be white when the salad reaches the table — no lemon, no vinegar, no acidulated water, no tossing it in the dressing early to protect it.

Waldorf salad, a shaved fennel and apple salad, a kale and apple slaw, a grain bowl: all of them look better made with SnowSweet, and all of them can be made further ahead.

They make a pale, mild, naturally sweet sauce that usually needs no added sugar at all. The fine-grained flesh breaks down smoothly, and the colour stays notably light — SnowSweet sauce is closer to ivory than the tan most varieties give you.

Add lemon at the end for brightness; the apple will not supply it. For a sharper sauce, cook it half and half with a tart variety.

Only as a sweetener in a blend. Sweet cider — unfermented juice — made from SnowSweet alone is pleasant but one-dimensional.

Blend it with something sharp such as GoldRush or a russet, and it earns its place by contributing sugar and body.

Very well, and this is an underrated use. Because the flesh resists browning, dried SnowSweet rings come out pale gold rather than the leathery brown you usually get — with no sulphur dip and no lemon bath.

Slice an eighth of an inch thick, dry at 135°F for six to ten hours until leathery rather than brittle, and cool completely before jarring.

A medium SnowSweet — about 200 grams — is roughly 100 to 110 calories. A small one is nearer 75 to 85; a large one runs 120 to 140.

The figure to work from is 52 calories per 100 grams, from USDA, for a raw apple with the skin on. SnowSweet eats distinctly sweet with very little tartness, and it is a good-sized apple.

A large SnowSweet of about 250 grams comes to roughly 120 to 140 calories.

Across the sizes we pack: small (~155 g) about 81, medium (~200 g) about 104, large (~250 g) about 130. Multiply the weight in grams by 0.52 for a close estimate at any size.

A small SnowSweet of about 155 grams is roughly 75 to 85 calories.

A kitchen scale beats guessing from the word on the bag — and the apple count on a case is the quickest guide, since a 72-count fruit is considerably larger than a 125-count.

Per 100 grams of raw SnowSweet with the skin on: about 52 calories, 13.81 g carbohydrate, 2.4 g fiber, 0.26 g protein, 0.17 g fat, 107 mg potassium and 85.56 g water.

For a medium apple of about 200 grams that is roughly 104 calories, 28 g carbohydrate and 4.8 g fiber. The full table by size is in the nutrition section above.

About 26 to 30 grams of total carbohydrate in a medium apple, of which roughly 4.8 grams is fiber — so approximately 23 grams of net carbs.

Per 100 grams that is 13.81 grams. That is typical for an apple.

Roughly 28 grams of total carbohydrate in a medium apple, with about 4.8 grams of that being dietary fiber.

Essentially all of an apple’s calories are carbohydrate — there is almost no fat and, in this cultivar, about 0.26 grams of protein per 100 grams.

About 19 to 23 grams in a medium apple, all of it the fruit’s own — nothing is added. That is 10.4 grams per 100 grams of fruit.

SnowSweet reads as sweet and rich, almost buttery, with very little tartness pushing back against it. The snow-white flesh is slow to brown, which is half the reason people buy it.

About 4.8 grams in a medium apple with the skin on — 2.4 grams per 100 grams.

That is about average for an apple. Peeling costs you roughly a third of it.

Very little of either: about 0.5 grams of protein and 0.3 grams of fat in a medium apple, and virtually no sodium.

Apples are almost entirely water and carbohydrate — SnowSweet is about 85.56 percent water by weight.

About 107 mg per 100 grams, so roughly 214 mg in a medium apple.

That is typical for an apple.

About 9.2 mg in a medium apple — 4.6 mg per 100 grams.

Apples are not a major vitamin C source next to citrus; an orange carries roughly ten times as much. What there is sits mostly just under the skin and degrades with heat, so a raw unpeeled apple retains more of it than a baked one.

For fiber, yes — roughly a third of it sits in the skin, along with most of the fruit’s colour compounds.

SnowSweet skin is moderate in thickness, thinner than a RubyFrost and easy to eat. Leaving it on also keeps the bronze-red rim against the white flesh, which is half the point of putting this apple on a platter. Rinse under running water and rub with your hands before eating, as with any fresh fruit.

Roughly two large, three medium or four small apples make a pound — three medium is the standard working assumption in American recipes.

SnowSweet runs medium to large, so expect two large or three medium to the pound. A 9-inch pie takes seven or eight.

They are cousins from the same programme, and they are aiming at different things. Honeycrisp is about texture: that explosive, coarse-celled, shattering crunch, with bright acidity. SnowSweet is about the cut surface: finer-grained, denser, sweeter in balance, richer and more buttery, and it stays white.

Practical differences. SnowSweet ripens about two weeks later. Honeycrisp stores considerably longer — months against SnowSweet’s 60 to 80 days. And on sugar-to-acid, SnowSweet reads as the sweeter and mellower of the two. If you want a snapping apple to eat whole, Honeycrisp. If you are slicing it in advance, SnowSweet, every time.

Both resist browning, by different routes and with opposite flavour.

Choose by season and by job. SnowSweet is an October apple, best eaten by December, and it is the better salad and cheese-board apple. RubyFrost is a late-October pick held in storage for January to April, and its acidity makes it much the better baker. Between them they cover the non-browning need for most of the year.

Cortland has the older reputation for slow browning and deserves it, but SnowSweet was selected specifically for the trait and generally holds longer. The bigger difference is everything else: Cortland is softer, tarter and a classic McIntosh-family apple; SnowSweet is denser, sweeter and richer.

For a salad you are making ahead, either works and SnowSweet works longer. For a pie, Cortland’s acidity gives you more to taste.

Not as a parent or a child. They share a breeding programme — both came out of the University of Minnesota under David Bedford and James Luby — but SnowSweet is Sharon × Connell Red, and Honeycrisp is not in its pedigree.

The connection people feel is real but institutional rather than genetic: the same breeders, the same Excelsior orchard, the same thirty-year commitment to cold-hardy apples with unusual texture.

Sharon as the seed parent and Connell Red as the pollen parent, crossed in 1970 under the breeding number AE 7022.

Connell Red is the interesting half. It is a red sport of Fireside, a Minnesota release, discovered and selected for its deeper colour by Tom Connell at Connell Orchards near Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. So the white flesh and the cold hardiness both have Minnesota breeding standing behind them.

It is sweet, but it is not at the top of that list.

What makes SnowSweet taste sweet is the ratio rather than the raw sugar. Low acidity means very little is pushing back, so the sweetness is what you notice.

The University of Minnesota apple breeding programme, at its Horticultural Research Center in Excelsior, Minnesota. The named inventors on the plant patent are David Bedford and James Luby — the same pair behind Honeycrisp, Zestar! and SweeTango.

The cross was made in 1970, the seedling was selected in 1983, and the variety was introduced in early 2006. Thirty-six years from pollination to produce aisle.

The cultivar is ‘Wildung’. SnowSweet® is the trademark under which it is sold, registered to the Regents of the University of Minnesota. Nursery tags often read “SnowSweet® (Wildung variety)” for exactly this reason.

It is the same arrangement as most modern apples: Pink Lady® is the cultivar ‘Cripps Pink’, and SnapDragon® is Cornell’s ‘NY 1’. The patent protects the plant for a term; the trademark protects the name indefinitely.

It is a person. David K. Wildung was a University of Minnesota horticulturist who joined the university in 1969 and spent his career at the North Central Research and Outreach Center in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, retiring in 2007 — a berry man, principally, with a long list of blueberry and strawberry releases behind him.

Minnesota has a habit of putting the names of its people on its plants. The apple that carries his name is not one he bred, which is rather the nicest version of the tradition.

At the University of Minnesota Horticultural Research Center in Excelsior, Minnesota, in 1983 — and the patent records the address precisely: Tree 47, Row 14, Block 6.

That tree was one seedling out of a planting raised from the 1970 AE 7022 cross. Every SnowSweet in the world is a graft descended from it.

Early 2006. The plant patent application was filed on 13 October 2006, published in April 2007, and granted as USPP 19,446 on 11 November 2008.

The gap between the 1983 selection and the 2006 introduction is normal and instructive — a seedling has to be propagated, grown out on multiple sites, fruited across enough seasons to prove it is consistent, and put in front of enough tasters before anyone commits to a name.

Snow for the flesh, which is white and stays white; sweet for the flavour. As apple names go it is unusually honest — both halves describe something the fruit measurably does.

Compare it with RubyFrost, named by a marketing agency and a consumer panel, where “frost” was chosen because one grower thought it suggested juiciness. SnowSweet says what it is.

Here, in season, shipped from the farm — and otherwise mostly at Upper Midwest orchards and farmers’ markets. SnowSweet has never had wide supermarket distribution, because a 60-to-80-day keeper with a dusky bronze-red blush is not what a national produce buyer is shopping for.

If nothing is listed above, the crop is still on the tree or the season has ended. Check Harvest Times, or see Ready to Ship for what is leaving the farm today.

We ship fresh apples across the country, with some destination restrictions and some seasonal limits driven by weather — hard freezes and extreme heat both affect what we will send and when. Our shipping information page covers packing, timing and destinations.

If you have a question about a specific state or a specific delivery date, call 518-695-4517 or email [email protected] and we will tell you straight.

It depends on fruit size, which is why cases are sold by apple count rather than by number of pieces. A case is a fixed weight, so a 72-count case holds 72 larger apples and a 125-count case holds 125 smaller ones.

SnowSweet runs medium to large, so it typically packs in the larger counts. Our general apple FAQ explains apple-count sizing across all varieties.

They sit above commodity apples and below the licensed club varieties. The patent has expired or is expiring, but the trademark and the limited plantings keep supply modest, and a two-month keeper carries more risk for a grower than a variety that holds until spring.

What you are actually paying for is the slow-browning trait. If you slice apples in advance for a family, a classroom or a party, it earns the difference. If you eat them whole out of a bowl, it does not.

Call 518-695-4517 or email [email protected]. We are an orchard, so someone who has actually picked the fruit will answer you.

Our general apple FAQ covers washing, handling, storage and apple-count sizing across every variety we grow, and shipping information covers packing and delivery.