December 11: Keepsake
Frostbite (MN447) x Northern Spy
U of M, 1979
Keepsake is full of flavor. It’s absolutely delicious and thirst quenching — it’s amazing how much juice it gives up in the press. It has yellow, fine-grained flesh, decent acid and so much sugar that it’s best to eat this apple cold, otherwise the sugar gets to be a bit much.
Keepsake is an undersung parent of the Honeycrisp but after eating a Keepsake, it’s clear to see where Honeycrisp got its texture.
Keepsake is one of two apple varieties bred by the U of M with Frostbite and Northern Spy as its parents; the other is Sweet Sixteen. Those crosses were from 1936 by W.H. Alderman.
Sometimes Keepsake can look stripey, splotchy, or lumpy, but I think that has a lot to do with the crop load the trees bear each year.
Keepsake was only (relatively) recently identified as a parent of Honeycrisp. Genetic testing confirmed the parentage after David Bedford, the U of M’s apple breeder, made a trip to the USDA Apple Collection in Geneva, NY and noticed how much the Honeycrisp being grown there looked like Keepsake (apple varieties can express themselves quite differently depending on where they’re grown).
Growing Notes
From a positive perspective, Keepsake is scab, fireblight, and cedar apple rust resistant. It’s hardy to Zone 3. And it’s an annual bearer. For its negatives, it can take a while for a tree to bear fruit and it tends to overproduce, so apple quality and size benefit greatly from thinning.
