By Larry Crum
The origin of the apple is thought to have occurred on slopes of the Tien Shan
Mountain range in what is now Kazakhstan. For millions of years, these hills were
protected from glaciation by the Himalayan mountains to the north and sustained
by the monsoon rains of the Indian ocean. No other region on the earth has
experienced such a long, reasonably stable time for evolution to occur.
Consequently, many of our present fruits and nuts originated in this evolutionally
supportive region.
With the silk routes from China to Europe passing though this area, apples and
other fruits migrated to the middle east and eventually to Europe. Dwarf
rootstocks were brought to Greece by Alexander the Great, and dwarfing was
probably known to the ancient Egyptians. Thus, the apple was spread from the
rich slopes of the Tien Shan mountains throughout the world.
Some apple historians assert that there are more than 20,000 different varieties
of apples, although the obvious duplication of names would more likely reduce
this number to less than 10,000. Of course, 10,000 is still a very large number;
there are only two species of the commercial banana and only one of the kiwi.
The explanation for this very large number of varieties of the apple can partly
be found in that, probably for good evolutionary reasons, the apple is rarely
self-fertile. Although it reproduces through sexual reproduction, apples require
cross pollination to generate an offspring and thus seeds. Interestingly, apples
have over 57,000 genes, and thus the tremendous diversity in the apple
population.
A large percentage of this large number of varieties originated in North
America. With the westward expansion of the US, and Canada, landowners
found it difficult to carry seedlings of established apples, but seeds were readily
available. Much of the population drank cider and beer, and thus large cideries
generated huge quantities of seeds. One landowner is said to have purchased a
bushel of seeds to start his new orchard. Indeed, in the settlement of the
Northwest Territory (the land north of the Ohio, west of the Mississippi, and
south of the Great Lakes) a homesteader was required to plant 50 apple and 50
pear trees. Nurserymen like Johnny Appleseed provided seeds to these farmers
and they grew new apples from seed. Since the apple reproduce by cross
pollination, each seed grew a completely new apple—most of which were
worthless. However, grafting skills were widespread and once a good apple was
found, it was rapidly spread by asexual cloning.
