Morphological Characterization of Apple Varieties Found in Yasin Valley, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan

The proverb “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” addressing the health effects of the fruit. Apple is the most important temperate fruit crop and has been cultivated in Asia and Europe from antiquity. Apple is a fruit of temperate climate and it is native to many parts of Europe and Asia [1]. Worldwide, apple is the four most broad produced short-lived fruits, and in more than 94 countries, its production is 69.60 million metric tons fresh weight, yield from 4.85 million hectares of land. M. pumila is commonly known as apple in English, and pommier common in French [2] (Figure 1). Locally in Brushaski language it is called Bhalt and in Shina it is known as ‘Falaa’. The genus Malus belongs to the Rose family (Rosaceae), which consists of over 100 genera and 300 species. Its members are distributed worldwide, most commonly these are distributed in temperate regions [3]. Throughout the history of cultivation of M. pumila, more than ten thousand cultivars have been developed but now many of them are lost [3,4]. And now currently 100 cultivars are grown marketable [5]. M. pumila is of different sized, small to medium, much-branched, these are deciduous trees having a single trunk and a broadly spreading canopy. The cultivated trees are generally 2-5 m tall while the wild trees can reach 10-15 m in height.