Struggle to save the apple's Asian birthplace

Telegraph ^ | August 21, 2009 | Richard Spencer in the Zailijskei Alatau Mountains

[SunkenCiv]

The common ancestor of all the Granny Smiths and Cox's Orange Pippins still grows on some of the world's most beautiful but little known mountainsides in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan.

The discovery of the "Garden of Eden" in Central Asia has triggered efforts to save what remains of the forests, always known for their abundance of wild fruit. Once under assault by Soviet agricultural planners, they are now menaced by the wealth of oil capitalism and as much as 80 per cent has disappeared.

"In earlier historical times there were vast mixed fruit forests across the area," said Dr Barrie Juniper, the Emeritus Reader in plant sciences at Oxford University and author of "The Story of the Apple".

The book describes how he and other researchers used gene sequencing to trace the family of the common or garden apple to the Tian Shan, or Celestial Mountains, on Kazakhstan's border with China.

"There are just a mere handful of fruit forest patches now, and to find them you have to be taken there by someone who knows where they are going."

Dr Juniper's findings came as a surprise. Apples are well known to be among the most easily hybridised of fruits, explaining the many varieties in the world's greengroceries. It was previously thought that different sub-species mutated from wild crab apples.

But genetic comparisons showed that all sweet apples were relatives of the malus sieversii family.

This flourishes uniquely in the northern reaches of the Tian Shan, more sheltered from the harsh sun and deserts of the south.

[ApplegateRanch]

Too much gin when they celebrated his birth?

[SunkenCiv]

Ironically, it was apple jack.