I created twenty-seven new varieties from wild apples

Less than 30% of the original stands of apples in the forests of Kazakhstan remain. Instead of accepting such losses and assuming that protecting the forest remnants is enough, Aimak Dzangaliev has another future in mind for the apples of Kazakhstan. He has proposed forest restoration in the best remaining habitats, employing some twenty-seven clones of choice wild apples that will be transplanted back into selected niches that fit their ecological needs. But he is also putting these twenty-seven clones on the fast track for commercial production, making the assumption that most Kazakhs will not ever fully respect the rich genetic legacy of Kazakh apples if they do not gain some income and health benefits from them.

“At one point, I took a step back, and asked myself what Vavilov would do with these apples if he were alive today. And so, in memory of Dr Vavilov, I have dedicated myself to create new selections of apples for planting that are exclusively derived from wild materials.”

It is an astonishing approach to linking the conservation of apples to both the health and economic well-being of the human communities in their center of origin and diversity. In essence, Dzangaliev is by-passing the narrowed-down gene pool of domesticated apples altogether, and selecting the most delicious and nutritious wild and semi-managed apples for future cultivation, natural hybridization and selection.

“If you want good apples on your table, he smiled, thumping the tabletop in front of him, “we need to go back to the best characteristics in wild apples, the ones that are healthiest for humans. A widespread cultivar like Golden Delicious is simply not that good; it does not have good nutritional value nor much disease-resistance. We not only have to do better plant genetics work on these apples, but we have to fight against [reiterating] the errors of history.”

Given his status as a novagenarian, it was bit surprising to see how anxious Aimak Dzangaliev is to see some of these wild apples contribute to the food security of his country once more. Perhaps it is because he painfully remembers the winter of 1955, when more than 8000 hectares of fruit trees were killed in Kazakhstan due to harsh winter weather; he knows that mix of the wild apple ecotypes can better withstand the stresses associated with a variable climate than a few big cultivars can.

“That’s why I’m asking the Kazakh government for more money to get the production of these apples on the fast track before I die,” At a field station he helped establish in 1959 below Jungar Alatau, he is hoping to ramp up the regeneration of planting stock of wild apples in what has already become the largest nursery in Kazakhstan. He has also proposed a series of two to three square kilometer protected forests as wild apple reserves to be strategically placed out from the city of Almaty. When I mentioned that his vision seemed quite ambitious, Dr Dzangaliev’s face suddenly broke into a large smile:

“I have this joke with my wife, Tatiana. We say that when I go to heaven to see what happens after I die, St Gabriel will meet me at the gates and ask me what I have done during my time on earth that was good enough to allow my passage into heaven. I will reply that I created twenty-seven new varieties from wild apples, and with my wife, I helped create fourteen new varieties of apricots. Saint Gabriel will then look astonished and ask me how many millions of people have already eaten them.

“None yet, really, I will answer, trying to explain to him that such research takes some time to bear fruit.

“Well unless the people begin to eat your apples very soon, St Gabriel will tell me, you will be going to Hell.

“And it is because of St. Gabriel,” Aimak Dzangaliev said, laughing, “that I am anxious for my people to eat the apples of Kazakhstan once again.”

Tagged as: Apples