Kazakhstan — Home Of The Apple
From One, Many
True of almost all plants, the apple we know and love, the Fuji or McIntosh that resides next to the banana in the fruit bowl, came from a single tree. Malus sieversii is a wild apple native to the mountains of Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan.
A Single Tree
That sounds simple enough and even logical. Apple trees that cover the planet sprung from just one plant. A lot had to happen for the tree to spread from place to place, yielding the sweet, fleshy fruit we love.
Kazakhstan- Home of The Apple
Thanks to the work of Russian scientist Nikolai Vavilov, who first identified Malus Sieversii in 1929 as the progenitor of our first apple in the mountains of Kazakhstan. That was 10,000 years ago.
Today we have apple orchards everywhere. So how did seeds from a single tree 10,000 years ago spread around the planet? The apples drop to the ground once the tree bears the fruit. That becomes food for grazing animals. As they walk away from the tree, the undigested seeds come out of their body. Some of these take root. Over an extended period, the seeds spread out, and after being repeated over the years, you start to have apple trees. That’s pretty obvious.
