How do I grow perfect amazing fuji apples in Indiana?

April 27, 2012 5:33 PM

When I was a kid in southeast asia the grocery store had these perfect gorgeous amazing fuji apples. I want to replicate them in the Midwestern united states. How were they produced?

They were like the size of a grapefruit and they had a soft foam wrapper protecting each perfect apple. The skin was the most flawless pink and when you cut them open it was crisp and white and incredibly delicious. I am sure they were very expensive because we only had them very occasionally. Now I live in the midwest and there are fuji apples in the grocery store but they are not at all the same. All apples here are about the same size and none of them are really super amazing. I am thinking about planting some apple trees and trying to replicate the dream apples of my youth. How do I do this? I am thinking that I will thin the apples to a very small number per tree and really coddle them, but I know nothing about apple farming. Does anyone know how those super fancy apples were produced?

posted by steinwald to Home & Garden (4 answers total)

Best answer: The basic techniques are thinning down to one apple per cluster (typically the king fruit) and bagging the apples on the tree. There are several bagging methods, including paper bags, plastic zip-type bags, and nylon footies. I believe the Japanese favor a two layer mesh bag. Aggressive pruning and bagging are labor intensive but produce high quality results.
posted by jedicus at 5:52 PM on April 27, 2012 [4 favorites]

Best answer: I can buy those Fuji apples here, usually in small independent stores. They are indeed pink and large and beautiful and delicious and come in the foam wrappers. These apples are grown in, and imported to the UK from, China, and I've noticed the apples are distinctively different from the Fuji apples I've had in the States. So maybe the trick is to buy a Chinese Fuji tree, if you can find one, rather than an American variety, which produces a totally different apple altogether.

Or if you live in an area with a Chinatown, you may find the apples there. I know I've seen them in Chinatown in New York and San Francisco.
posted by essexjan at 6:20 PM on April 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The pink variety may be the Myra sport, which is pinker than other varieties of Fuji. It may also be a side effect of the bagging. Here's an example of a Chinese apple orchard that bags its apples (scroll down to the second picture). Here's another one.

Here's some discussion of apple bagging from the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture. Here's another site with instructions on how to use zip-type bags.
posted by jedicus at 7:05 PM on April 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks! that is exactly what I was looking for.
posted by steinwald at 7:52 PM on April 27, 2012