Apple

Every apple in the world comes from the Tian Shan

Did you know that every apple in the world comes from our mountains? Wild apple forests — the 'Sievers apple' — still grow in the Tian Shan. Bears ate the sweetest apples and spread the seeds — that's how apples became sweet! Then Silk Road caravans carried the apple to Europe. Kazakhstan's city Almaty means 'father of apples'.

The main ancestor of the cultivated apple (Malus domestica) is Malus sieversii, which still grows in the wild apple forests of the Western Tian Shan (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan); genome analysis confirmed this in 2010. Bears and wild horses picked the largest, sweetest fruit and spread the seeds — natural selection. The apple travelled west along the Silk Road and crossed with the European crab apple (M. sylvestris). Today there are more than 7,500 varieties; a tree grown from seed doesn't resemble its parents — so apples are grafted. 95 million tonnes are grown a year (China 50%). Uzbekistan leads Central Asia in apples, with orchards in Fergana and Samarkand. The wild apple forests of the Tian Shan have shrunk 70% — they are protected as a genetic treasure.

Fun facts

• Bears made apples sweet: they chose the sweetest fruit to eat.
• A tree grown from a seed isn't like its mother — every seed is a new variety!
• There are more than 7,500 apple varieties — one a day would take 20 years.