Apple trees grow almost everywhere, and their homeland is Kazakhstan. This is not a legend, but a fact confirmed by science. Today there are about 10.5 thousand varieties of apples, and their ancestor was the ordinary wild apple tree, whose fruits look completely unremarkable.
They write different things about the age of the Sievers apple tree, but it is absolutely known that it grew before our era in what is now modern Kazakhstan. Archaeologists fully accept the idea that it even existed during the time of the dinosaurs.
And the first recorded description of the Sivers apple tree was made in 1793 by a scientist at the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Sciences. The apple tree was named in honor of Johann Sievers.
The assumption that it was these Kazakh apples that became the ancestors of all cultivated varieties on the planet was put forward by various researchers, including Barry Juniper, a geneticist at the University of Oxford. He confirmed this using a DNA test and found confirmation in molecular genetic studies. French scientist Catherine Bex confirmed Juniper's hypothesis.
But what is the secret of such durability and vitality of this apple tree?
The DNA of this apple subspecies is very resistant to diseases and severe temperatures. Usually, with such indicators, fruit trees die, but the Sievers apple tree copes not only with sweltering heat, but also with severe frosts.
The fact is that this type of apple tree grew in a variety of gorges and at various altitudes, that is, it was simply accustomed to all conditions, and as you know, temperature changes in Kazakhstan are quite noticeable.
Juniper noted that apples, like fruits, were formed over millions of years in their natural habitat - in the Tien Shan Mountains. And as soon as people tamed horses (which, as you know, also began in Kazakhstan), apple seeds began to spread throughout the world.
Also, apples actively spread not only with the help of traders, but also during periods of military campaigns - this is how the seeds of Sivers apples ended up in Europe.
Scientists also do not exclude the fact that the wild apple tree could spread even through the soil - through root budding, because the roots of apple trees can spread from the trunk to the side for several meters.
It's sad that Sievers' apples, which can outlive dinosaurs, have a hard time with human intervention. Kazakhstani ecologists note that over the past two hundred years, forests in the foothills have decreased several times. Because of this, the Sievers apple tree was under threat, and so seriously that at the end of the 20th century, many famous scientists demanded that attention be paid to the fact that the ancestor of apples is a valuable material that needs to be reduced.
As a result, students from Caspian University decided to seriously take care of these apple trees. They chipped apple trees in the Trans-Ili Alatau gorge to monitor their condition and pay attention to possible diseases in time.