The winter of 1999 was a heartbreaker for Washington apple grower Blair Losvar. One year earlier, a hailstorm had wiped out his entire crop in 20 minutes. He shook a third of the fruit onto the ground and picked the balance for juice. While this did cover the cost of picking the fruit, the brief storm brought about, "the loss of more hundreds of thousands of dollars that I care to talk about," Blair said.

But he persevered, nurturing his trees throughout the next spring and summer, hoping to wrap up the century on a profitable note. As Blair and his father prepared to harvest their crop of the typey, striped Red Delicious varieties preferred by Asian markets, the economy in that region weakened significantly. He was left without a home for his crop, and little choice but to reconsider his future.

The bad luck of the late 1990s has, perhaps, led Blair onto a path of better fortune. He is now among the exclusive club of ENZA Pacific Rose™ and Jazz™ apple growers in Washington.

"I had a plan to diversify all mapped out," he said. "The troubles of the late 1990s accelerated things along."

Blair first learned of the Pacific Rose™ and Jazz™ varieties through other growers who had been to New Zealand.

"They were universally excited about Jazz™," said Blair, who traveled to New Zealand himself in 2001 to evaluate the viability of growing Pacific Rose™ and Jazz™. Hosted by ENZA, he met researchers and growers there and gained a better understanding of both apple types.

"In New Zealand, everyone I met - even people on the airplane -- loved the Pacific Rose™. But the growers acknowledged that it's a challenging apple to produce," he said.

Blair decided that despite the $12,000-14,000 per acre investment needed to get initially involved, he liked ENZA's controlled planting program and felt growing Jazz™ and Pacific Rose™ might just be worth the risk. He harvested his first small volume of Pacific Rose™ in 2003.

"We can grow a really nice Pacific Rose™ apple in Washington. Everyone I've given these apples to has really liked them," he said.

Blair credits the climate of Eastern Washington as ideal for a better finish, less russet, and a redder color than New Zealand's Pacific Rose™. He also commented that one of the tricks to growing a good Pacific Rose™ is to position the apple perfectly on the limb so nothing touches it, not even the limb on which it grows.

In a few weeks, Blair will harvest his first Jazz™ apples - just a couple of cartons -- and is excited about the prospect of larger volumes in the future. He's looking ahead to a successful marketing season for both varieties - both of which he counts among his favorites.

"They are very different pieces of fruit with quite different characteristics. Jazz™ is tart-sweet and very crunchy, while Pacific Rose™ has a more delicate sweetness with a unique texture. They are both very good eating apples," he said.

In addition to the ENZA apples, Blair also grows three cherry varieties, along with Bartlett, Red and Green D'Anjou, Bosc, and Taylor's Gold pears, and Red and Golden Delicious and Gala apples on his 195 acres - property that his been in his family for three generations.

In the 1960s, Blair's grandmother was an absentee landowner and partner in the orchard in Loomis, WA. The Losvar family had been living in a suburb of Seattle, operating a boathouse in Mukilteo, WA. Hard times hit the region when Boeing began downsizing in the 1960s. The Losvars moved east to the "microscopic" town of Loomis when Blair was five years old. His father managed the orchard for nearly four decades, adding significant acreage, before retiring.

When Blair left home to attend Washington State University, he admits he had no intention of returning to the orchard.

"The last thing I had planned to do was to go into the orchard business," he said. But by the time he had to declare a major, Blair had made enough visits with friends to the Seattle area to know he did not want, "to be an urbanite … So, I went into horticulture," he said simply.

After graduation, Blair worked as a horticulturalist for Chief Wenatchee for a decade and a half, and later joined Stemilt Growers, Inc. Eventually, he returned to the family business.

When the long days of this harvest season pass, Blair hopes to spend some time snow skiing and cheering his favorite Washington State Cougars on to a winning record - and maybe even a Rose Bowl appearance. For a man who has overcome adversity to grow Pacific Rose™ apples, that seems a fitting reward for New Year's Day.