An interesting article appeared quite recently voicing concerns over the lack of resistance shown by certain domestic apple species against disease. No concrete reason could be given for this, but it was very interesting to note that the wild apple tree is still more resistant to disease than the majority of our current orchard stock.

So it was only logical that scientists decided to actively get involved in the protection of these wild apple trees.  Nestled between Russia, to the North, and China to the South, is Kazakhstan which has the largest untouched apple tree forests in the world. In these vast apple tree forests many different apple and pear varieties grow successfully and produce fruit that would make most supermarket apples look second rate.  These apple trees are very resistant to disease and have no pesticides sprayed on them nor are they tended to by any one. No genetically modified fruit here either just plain wild apples and various varieties to boot.

Why the move to protect these trees?  Well scientists are trying to find out where we have gone wrong. We have taken a perfect wild apple tree and tried to create a superior fruit tree, but unfortunately we have produced a tree that is struggling to fight disease effectively. I am though very optimistic by the move to protect and investigate the wild apple tree as it shows maturity in the apple industry which is very hard to find in the world today. To me Kazachstan will no longer just be a country somewhere in Asia but a country that has a jewel so precious that we dare not sit by and watch it being destroyed.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 8:43 am and is filed under Office Fruit Blog-2010. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.