Fuji Apples

Very — Fuji is one of the sweetest apples commercially grown, and it is not close.

That combination is the whole character of the apple: a dense, hard, extremely juicy bite that reads as clean sweetness with very little tartness behind it.

Honey-sweet and mild, with a clean, almost sugary finish and a faint floral note. There is very little tartness to balance it, which is why Fuji is the apple people reach for when they say they do not like sour apples.

The texture is as distinctive as the flavour: dense and fine-grained with a hard, satisfying crunch and a great deal of juice. It is a heavier, more substantial bite than a Gala or a McIntosh.

Exceptionally. Fuji has dense, fine-grained flesh with a hard, clean snap — firmer than almost any other common variety, and it holds that firmness for months in storage better than most.

It is a different crunch from Honeycrisp. Honeycrisp has large cells that burst and shatter; Fuji is dense and solid, so the bite is harder and more sustained rather than explosive.

A large, very sweet, extremely crisp apple bred in Japan — a cross of Ralls Janet and Red Delicious made at Fujisaki in Aomori in 1939 and released in 1962. It is now one of the most widely grown apples in the world.

Its defining traits are high sugar with low acid, dense flesh that stays hard for months, and a tendency toward watercore — the translucent, honey-sweet flesh Japanese growers call mitsu and treat as a premium trait.

Fuji, clearly. Fuji flesh is dense and hard — it takes real pressure to bite and breaks with a solid snap. Gala is crisp when fresh but noticeably lighter and finer-textured, and it softens sooner in storage.

If you want the loudest crunch of all, neither is the answer: that is Honeycrisp, whose large cells burst rather than shear. Fuji is the hardest of the three; Honeycrisp is the crispest.

Two reasons, one inherited and one earned. Fuji's parents — Ralls Janet and Delicious — are both low-acid, sweet-leaning apples, so there is little acidity to balance the sugar and the sweetness reads as much higher.

Then it hangs. Fuji is a late apple that stays on the tree well into autumn, accumulating sugar through weeks of warm days and cold nights that earlier varieties never get.

Moderately — slower than McIntosh, faster than Cortland or Ginger Gold, which are the genuine slow-browning apples. Expect visible browning within 15 to 20 minutes on a cut surface.

Lemon juice, a splash of cider vinegar, or simply tossing the slices into a dressing stops it. So does cold: slices held in the refrigerator brown far more slowly than slices left on a counter.

Yes. Watercore is not rot, mould or contamination — it is the apple's own sugar solution filling the air spaces between cells, which is why the flesh looks glassy and translucent rather than opaque white.

In Japan watercored Fuji is sold at a premium under the name mitsu, meaning honey. The one caution is storage, not safety: heavily watercored fruit does not keep as long, so eat it rather than save it.

Fuji is the classic, and the most likely apple in any American store to show it. Honeycrisp is also prone, as are Gravenstein, Red Delicious, Jonathan, Braeburn and Mutsu.

Others rarely show it at all. It depends on the variety's sorbitol handling and on the season — a warm autumn with cold nights and a late harvest produces the most watercore, which is precisely the weather a late apple like Fuji is picked in.

Not reliably by eye. Commercial packers use near-infrared light, which passes through fruit differently where the air spaces have filled with liquid, to grade watercore without cutting anything.

Two rough hints at home: heavily watercored apples feel slightly heavy for their size, and they often come from the most sun-exposed fruit at the top of the tree. Neither is dependable — cutting one is the only way to know.

As part of a blend, yes — it brings sweetness and body. On its own it makes a gentle cider that some find a little one-note.

Blend it with something sharper such as Golden Russet or GoldRush.

Yes, with one adjustment. Fuji's dense flesh holds up well to heat, so it does not collapse — useful in pies, tarts, roasts and sautés where you want the fruit to stay recognisable.

The adjustment is acid. Fuji is very sweet and very low in acid, so cooked on its own it can taste flat and one-note. Add lemon, cider vinegar or a tart apple, and cut the recipe's sugar — usually by about a third.

They work well and they hold their shape, which is the hard part of pie. The slices stay distinct rather than turning to sauce.

What an all-Fuji pie lacks is brightness — it can taste sweet without much definition. The standard fix is to use Fuji for about two-thirds and a sharply tart apple like Granny Smith for the rest, plus a tablespoon of lemon juice, and to cut the sugar well below what the recipe says.

Eating fresh, first and foremost — Fuji is dense, honey-sweet and extremely juicy, and it keeps longer than almost anything else in the orchard.

It also works well in salads and slaws, and in baking where you want sweetness without much tartness. Cut the sugar in the recipe.

Yes, and they need little or no added sugar — which is the whole point of using them. Expect a pale, very sweet, mild sauce.

Fuji is dense, so give it longer than a McIntosh: 30 to 40 minutes of simmering with a splash of water rather than the 20 a soft apple needs. Blend in one or two tart apples — Granny Smith, Stayman, Pink Lady® — or add lemon juice, or the sauce tastes flat.

Apple flesh and skin are generally considered safe for dogs in small amounts, and many dogs like the crunch. Remove the core and seeds — apple seeds contain amygdalin, and the core is a choking and obstruction risk.

Fuji is one of the higher-sugar apples, so it is a treat rather than a food. Ask your veterinarian about your own dog, particularly a small one or one on a controlled diet — we grow apples, we are not veterinarians.

For pie and crisp, most bakers do — Fuji skin is thicker than average and tends to separate from the flesh into chewy strips during a long bake.

For sauce and apple butter, leave it on. The skin adds pectin and a rosy tint, and you sieve or blend it out at the end anyway. For roasting in wedges alongside pork or squash, leave it on as well: it helps the wedges hold together.

Whole baked Fuji: core it, fill, and bake at 350°F for 35 to 45 minutes until a knife slides in easily. Fuji's density is an advantage here — it softens without collapsing into the dish the way a McIntosh does.

In a pie, give it 20 minutes at 425°F then 35 to 45 at 375°F, and cut the slices no thicker than a quarter inch, since Fuji softens slowly. In a crisp, 40 to 45 minutes at 350°F.

A medium Fuji — about 195 grams — is roughly 115 to 130 calories. A small one is nearer 90 to 100; a large one runs 140 to 160.

The figure to work from is 63 calories per 100 grams, from USDA, for a raw apple with the skin on. Fuji is the highest-calorie apple USDA lists a cultivar entry for — ahead of Red Delicious at 59 and Granny Smith at 58 — because it is both the sweetest and the least watery, at about 84 percent water against 86 for most apples.

A large Fuji of about 240 grams comes to roughly 140 to 160 calories.

Across the sizes we pack: small (~150 g) about 94, medium (~195 g) about 123, large (~240 g) about 151. Multiply the weight in grams by 0.63 for a close estimate at any size.

A small Fuji of about 150 grams is roughly 90 to 100 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 Fuji with the skin on: about 63 calories, 15.22 g carbohydrate, 2.1 g fiber, 0.2 g protein, 0.18 g fat, 109 mg potassium and 84.16 g water.

For a medium apple of about 195 grams that is roughly 123 calories, 30 g carbohydrate and 4.1 g fiber. The full table by size is in the nutrition section above.

About 28 to 32 grams of total carbohydrate in a medium apple, of which roughly 4.1 grams is fiber — so approximately 26 grams of net carbs.

Per 100 grams that is 15.22 grams. Fuji is the highest of any apple USDA lists separately, which is what you would expect of the sweetest widely grown variety.

Roughly 30 grams of total carbohydrate in a medium apple, with about 4.1 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 0.2 grams of protein per 100 grams.

About 18 to 22 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.

Fuji is genuinely one of the sweeter apples, with very little tartness to offset it, which is why it reads as sweeter still. It is the apple to reach for if you find most apples too sharp.

About 4.1 grams in a medium apple with the skin on — 2.1 grams per 100 grams.

Fuji is slightly below the apple average for fiber, at 2.1 g per 100 g against 2.4 for a generic apple. Peeling costs you roughly a third of it.

Very little of either: about 0.4 grams of protein and 0.4 grams of fat in a medium apple, and virtually no sodium.

Apples are almost entirely water and carbohydrate — Fuji is about 84.16 percent water by weight.

About 109 mg per 100 grams, so roughly 213 mg in a medium apple.

That is close to the apple average. Sodium is negligible — about 1 mg per 100 grams in untreated fresh fruit.

About 9.0 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.

Fuji skin is thicker than average, which is why many bakers peel it for pie and leave it on for sauce, where it adds pectin and gets sieved out at the end. 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.

Fuji runs large, so you will often get fewer per pound than with a Gala or a McIntosh. A pound gives about 3 cups sliced.

Not on its own. Fuji colours up at different rates depending on the season and where the fruit sat on the tree, so a paler one can be every bit as ripe as a deep red one.

Growers go by background colour, by taste, and by the calendar. If you bought it, it is ripe.

Fuji is a late-season apple. In most of the United States it is picked from late September through October, and in the warmest growing districts into November — it is usually among the last varieties off the tree.

Because it stores exceptionally well, Fuji is then available from controlled-atmosphere storage nearly year-round in supermarkets. Fresh-picked is a much shorter window. Our own timing is on the Harvest Times page, and Ready to Ship shows what is actually leaving the farm today.

Longer than almost any apple we grow. In a cold crisper drawer, sound Fuji commonly holds good texture for two to three months, and often longer — it is one of the great keepers.

Three things decide it: cold (33 to 38°F, not a warm counter), humidity (a loosely closed bag beats open air), and starting condition. A bruised apple spoils fast and hastens its neighbours. Heavily watercored fruit is the exception — eat that first.

It depends almost entirely on the rootstock, not the variety. On a dwarfing rootstock such as M.9 or B.9, expect a light crop in 2 to 4 years. On semi-dwarf, 4 to 6. On standard seedling rootstock, 6 to 10 years.

Fuji has a reputation for being slower than average to settle into cropping, and for biennial bearing — a heavy year followed by a light one — unless the fruit is thinned early.

Dwarf Fuji on M.9 reaches about 8 to 10 feet and needs permanent staking or a trellis, because dwarfing rootstocks have brittle, shallow roots. Semi-dwarf makes 12 to 15 feet. A standard tree will go to 20 to 25 feet.

Fuji itself is a vigorous, spreading, wide-angled tree — growers often find it takes more summer pruning than an upright variety to keep light reaching the fruit, which is what colours it.

Fuji needs a different apple variety flowering at the same time — it is not reliably self-fertile. Good partners include Gala, Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, Braeburn, Red Delicious and most flowering crabapples.

Avoid Mutsu, Jonagold and Gravenstein as Fuji's pollen partner: those are triploid varieties with sterile pollen and cannot pollinate anything. A crabapple within about 50 feet is the simplest insurance.

Roughly 400 to 600 chill hours below 45°F — low for an apple. That is why Fuji succeeds in mild-winter regions such as central California, the American South and much of Japan, where high-chill varieties fail to break dormancy evenly.

It is hardy to about USDA zone 5, and grows well through zone 9 on the low-chill end — an unusually wide range for one cultivar.

Bare-root trees go in during dormancy: late winter to early spring in cold regions, or autumn where winters are mild. Container trees can be planted through the growing season if you water them consistently.

Give it full sun — at least six to eight hours — well-drained soil, and the graft union kept two to four inches above the soil line. Burying the graft lets the variety root and cancels the rootstock's size control entirely.

You can grow a tree from a Fuji seed, but it will not be a Fuji. Apples do not come true from seed — every pip is a genetic cross between the Fuji and whatever pollinated its blossom, so the seedling is a brand-new, usually unremarkable variety.

Every Fuji on earth is a graft descended from the original 1939 seedling at Fujisaki. That is also how chance seedlings like Ginger Gold are found — occasionally one of those random pips is worth propagating.

No — we are a fruit farm, not a nursery. We ship apples, not trees. For Fuji trees, look to a dedicated fruit-tree nursery and tell them your USDA zone so they match the rootstock to your site.

What we can do is send you the fruit. See Ready to Ship for what is leaving the farm now, or the listings above for Fuji specifically.

Fuji, comfortably. Gala is mild and gently sweet; Fuji is dense and honeyed, with very little tartness to offset it.

Gala is the lighter, softer apple and comes in much earlier. Fuji is the one that keeps.

They are both premium eating apples that solve different problems. Honeycrisp is sweet-tart with bright acidity and a large-celled flesh that explodes into juice — the texture is the event. Fuji is sweeter, denser and harder, with a sustained crunch rather than a shattering one, and much less acid.

Practically: Fuji keeps far longer, bruises less, travels better and costs less. Honeycrisp is the more exciting apple to eat fresh in season. See our Honeycrisp page.

Near-opposites in flavour, similar in texture and keeping. Pink Lady® carries high sugar and high acid, so it snaps tart then finishes sweet. Fuji carries high sugar and very little acid, so it reads as pure sweetness.

Both are dense, very firm and excellent keepers, and both are late apples. Choose Pink Lady if you want brightness and a better baking apple; Fuji if you want the sweetest possible crunch.

For the same very-sweet, low-acid, dense-crunch profile: EverCrisp (a Fuji × Honeycrisp cross, and the closest match we grow), Kiku and Envy (both Fuji or Gala descendants), and Ambrosia.

Gala is in the same flavour family but milder and softer. If you want Fuji's sweetness with more acidity, look at Pink Lady®.

They are related — Delicious is one of Fuji's two parents — and Fuji is comprehensively the better apple. Both are sweet and low in acid, but Fuji is denser, far juicier, considerably sweeter, and it holds its texture in storage where Red Delicious goes mealy.

Red Delicious keeps its elongated shape with five distinct points at the base and thicker, more bitter skin. If you grew up disappointed by Red Delicious, Fuji is the apple that inherited its virtues without the faults.

EverCrisp is Fuji's child — a Fuji × Honeycrisp cross released by the Midwest Apple Improvement Association. It was bred to take Fuji's sweetness and storage life and add Honeycrisp's crunch.

In practice EverCrisp is even denser and harder than Fuji, with a little more acidity, and it keeps just as long. Fuji is the smoother, more purely honeyed of the two; EverCrisp hits harder. If you like Fuji, EverCrisp is the obvious next apple to try.

Fuji, and not marginally.

Honeycrisp tastes brighter and more complex because of that acidity, and its texture is the reason people buy it. Fuji is the sweeter apple; Honeycrisp is the more interesting one. Plenty of households keep both.

Japan. Fuji was bred at the government apple research station in Fujisaki, in Aomori Prefecture at the northern end of Honshu, where the cross was made in 1939. It was selected, trialled and finally named and registered in 1962.

Despite the name it is a Japanese apple with an American parent on both sides — Ralls Janet, a Virginia heirloom, crossed with Red Delicious.

Almost everywhere apples are grown commercially. Japan remains the spiritual home and Aomori the centre of it, but China is now by far the largest producer, and Fuji is grown widely in Washington State, New York, Chile, Brazil, New Zealand and across Europe.

Ours are grown here in New York on our own trees.

No — Fuji is not reliably self-fertile and needs a compatible pollinizer nearby to set a good crop. It is also a poor pollen donor itself, because it is a triploid-behaving variety in practice for some growers; plan on two other compatible varieties in a home planting rather than one.

Gala, Granny Smith, Golden Delicious and most flowering crabapples work as partners. Bloom timing needs to overlap, so check that when you buy.

The trees are not — Fuji needs a compatible pollinizer nearby to crop properly, and it is not a strong pollen source for its neighbours either. A home planting should include at least one and ideally two other compatible varieties with overlapping bloom.

We are an orchard rather than a nursery, so we ship fruit, not trees.

Three costs stack up. Fuji is picked two or three times over rather than stripped in one pass, because the fruit colours unevenly. It is then usually held in controlled-atmosphere storage, which is expensive to run. And the premium large sizes people want are a minority of any crop.

Add shipping fresh fruit in protective packaging and the price reflects real handling, not margin. Bulk-style cases cost less per apple than gift boxes for exactly this reason.

Apples make their own natural wax on the skin — that is the bloom you can rub to a shine, and it is there before anyone touches the fruit. Commercial packers commonly add a thin food-grade coating after washing, because washing removes the natural layer and the fruit then loses moisture.

Rinse under running water and rub with your hands before eating, whatever the source. That is the standard advice for all fresh fruit, and it is in our general apple FAQ.