I've had the opposite experience of Fireduck; Fuji is one of our most reliable varieties and fruits on even badly-neglected trees such as my neighbor's in this photo. Initial reports show it is doing well in Zambia in equatorial Africa also. The ones we harvest have poor color but outstanding flavor and size; they ripen here around Thanksgiving.

Nora, you need to know that planting a seed from a Fuji apple will not produce a Fuji apple tree :-) You will just get a seedling no-name apple that may or may not bear fruit that has any resemblance to a Fuji. And it could take as long as 7-8 years for a seedling grown tree to produce fruit. Pruning should begin at an early age and be maintained biennially if not annually so as to avoid taking too much off at any one time and encouraging the tree to grow in the form that is most conducive to fruit production and harvesting. There are various methods and lots of online articles that illustrate how and when. And I would heartily disagree that finding someone who knows about fruit tree pruning at a nursery is unlikely!! We teach fruit tree pruning classes at my nursery and a fruit tree specialty nursery is even more likely to have knowledgeable staff on hand. But perhaps the caliber of nursery staffing is superior in my neck of the woods than that of the original responder :-))

I have been tasting my winter apples almost daily all fall. I noticed that up until the tree loses it's leaves the apples continue to sweeten. Immediately after the tree loses it's leaves a great deal of the sweetness is lost. I pick most of them for storage before that time. With many trees the nutrients are drawn back to the roots for winter storage. Maybe some of the sugars are also. I do not know. Maybe there is a study that can tell us. I tend to agree with most of what H-man has to say about ripeness. Certainly some perfectly ripe (by test) apples may be up in sugars but down in other qualities. Sensibly an individuals taste must rule here. Here is an anomaly for you. My unique winter apples froze solid this morning at 19 degrees. They have already frozen very hard many times. Tomorrow they will be solid, crisp and quite good. I have picked them in the middle of Dec and still very nice. This is the only tree I seen this happen to. All the rest are long gone to mush! This is a very old tree and has always been and still is extremely productive. Bberry

A field test was carried out by Tom Spellman of Dave Wilson Nursery. It was looking to see whether high-chill apple varieties could be grown in the city of Irvine (which only receives about 50-100 chill hours in the winter). The following apple varieties did surprisingly well: King Tompkins, Braeburn, Gravenstein, Cox's Orange Pippin. The trees tended to flower and set fruit throughout the year rather than a specific season. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiEEHRfAEWY