How to Care for Fuji Apple Trees

Biting into the sweet, slightly tangy Fuji apple is one of life's simple pleasures. While caring for a Fuji apple tree takes some know-how, the taste of your orchard-fresh Fuji apples represents an ample reward for your toil. Here's how to care for your own Fuji apple trees.

Instructions

Selecting and Planting a Fuji Apple Tree

1. Buy your Fuji apple trees from a reputable grower. These trees can be grown from seed, but are difficult to train in the early years and are best handled by the experts. Expect to pay less for a standard-size 1-year-old tree and more for a dwarf tree or a standard 2-year-old tree.

2. Select your location. Fuji apple trees need full sun and well-drained soil. They do best in zones 5 through 8, which have a mild winter. Fuji apples need a relatively long growing season since they take 160 days to ripen. The fruit also needs about 100 to 400 cold "chill" hours to establish dormancy.

3. Plant your trees in spring at a spacing of about 20 feet. You will need more than one Fuji apple tree since they're not self-fertile. Fuji apple trees bloom in mid- to late spring and can be planted with other mid- to late season bloomers, such as Gala and Goldrush varieties, for pollination.

4. Cultivate the soil to a depth of 15 to 18 inches and add organic material, such as compost. Plant trees with the graft line 2 inches above the soil.

5. Mulch with straw two feet around the bottom of each trunk. Water when you plant and when the weather is dry.

Pruning, Feeding and Harvesting a Fuji Apple Tree

1. Feed Fuji apple trees in early spring before new growth appears with a 12-12-12 fertilizer after the first year. Apply the fertilizer under the spread of the branches. Avoid high nitrogen fertilizers.

2. Thin each cluster of fruits to two per cluster with sharp pointed scissors after Fuji's pink-white blossoms fall and the fruit is visible. This will keep the fruit from crowding when it fully matures.

3. Apply insect control. There are organic options of insect control available from seedsofchange.com.

4. Harvest when the seeds of the Fuji apple turn from white to brown. Expect a yield of 8 to 12 bushels from an averaged-sized mature tree. Dwarfs will yield less and standards will yield more, but the standard tree will be taller and harder to harvest than the dwarf.

5. Prune your trees in late fall to winter to establish tree growth in the early years. The pruning in the first 2 to 3 years should focus on developing a strong framework. Prune the subsequent years in late summer to encourage fruit buds.