Awais Khan

A few years ago, my kids & I put this together to highlight the remarkable diversity of apple fruits & their fall leaf colors!

This is how fruit from an apple scab-susceptible variety could look like (without proper scab management)!

I looked at your website. It looks great & best of luck with your work. Unfortunately, I do not have contacts for commercial nurseries in Georgia or Armenia selling heirloom varieties. You might explore some nurseries in Türkiye or check with local extension services & bazaars in Georgia & Armenia.

𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐤 𝐑𝐨𝐚𝐝 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 is aimed at fostering collaborative research on apples across the historic Silk Road regions!
The website is currently under construction. If you are working on apples in the region & like to join the network, please email via website www.silk-road-apple-association.org

Charpoye project in progress in the basement on a snowy weekend!

This red-skinned apple with rosy red pigmentation around the core has high anthocyanin expression!

𝐈 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐏𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐲 & 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞… | Awais Khan 𝐈 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐏𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐲 & 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲 & 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟: 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝? There is a global race for...

www.linkedin.com/posts/awais-...

Bright orange lesion on the upper surface of the same ornamental pear leaf!

Not aliens! These are aecia projections of European pear (Trellis) rust (gymnosporangium sabinae) fungi on the underside of the leaf of an ornamental pear!

Aeciospores produced in aecia on the underside of the pear leaf infect junipers to continue the life cycle of rust.

The Plant Genome Call for Papers: Omics- and AI-Driven Breeding Innovations in Perennial Fruit Crops <em>The Plant Genome</em> is an open access journal providing the latest advances and breakthroughs in plant genomics research, including genome analyses and engineering.

We are guest editing a special issue of The Plant Genome “Omics- and AI-Driven Breeding Innovations in Perennial Fruit Crops”. Manuscript submissions are due April 30, 2026. Please see the details & share with your networks & colleagues!

acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/...

James, i established a Malus sieversii (Central Asian Apples) diversity orchard 3 years ago for long-term genetic research. This orchard has approximately 300 different accessions. This fruit is from some random accessions in this orchard!

Three apples at my kitchen counter!

A December sunrise over Seneca Lake!

Beautiful illustrations of #FireBlight spread & control - Cornell Extension Bulletin published on April 1939! Fire blight is the first phytobacterial disease ever described- plant pathology history!

Overwintering stage of Erwinia amylovora “Frozen in sleep, perhaps Blighter dreams of the Spring.”

Thanksgiving is a national holiday in the US. Apples bring their own touch of diversity & flavor to many Thanksgiving tables!

Got any apple dishes on your thanksgiving table? #HappyThanksgiving

Plums or apples? These are red-fleshed Robert’s Crab apples!

October is National Apple Month. Enjoy & share this beautiful display of diversity of apples & their wild relatives!

I spent the past few days curating iNaturalist data to generate distribution map of native North American crabapples!

Yes, there are four North American native crabapple species. iNaturalist community is critical to document their distribution

Please share & acknowledge #Biodiversity #NativePlants

A simplified domestication history of apples for today’s #NationalAppleDay! Share to celebrate!

Good to Know: Iconic apples centuries in the making - Good Fruit Grower A tale of two heirloom apples: Aport and Amasya.

Have you tried Amasya apples from Tùrkiye & Aport apples from Central Asia? We greatly enjoyed them during our trip to the region two years ago.

goodfruit.com/good-to-know...

🍎 What if apples could fight off disease on their own? Awais Khan, professor of plant pathology and plant microbe-biology at Cornell AgriTech is exploring apple DNA to uncover disease-resistant… | Cor... 🍎 What if apples could fight off disease on their own? Awais Khan, professor of plant pathology and plant microbe-biology at Cornell AgriTech is exploring apple DNA to uncover disease-resistant genes ...

A brief overview of our research at Cornell.
www.linkedin.com/posts/cornel...

It is that special time of the year when we harvest seeds carrying new genetic combinations with great potential to discover genetics behind key traits! #PlantGenetics

Fine‐Mapping of the Vhc1 QTL for Apple Scab Resistance on Linkage Group 1 of ‘Honeycrisp’ Apple scab, caused by Venturia inaequalis, is the most economically important fungal disease impacting apple production globally. Most commercial apple cultivars are susceptible to scab, although sev...

Enjoy reading our recent publication! Fine mapping of apple scab resistance locus from Honeycrisp!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Are you familiar with Aport & Amasya apples? Enjoy reading a tale of two heirloom apples: Aport and Amasya!

goodfruit.com/good-to-know...

Thanks!

Enjoy & feel free to share! Diversity in size, color & shape of domesticated #Apples & their wild relatives! Photo credits, Awais Khan Cornell University.

#GeneticDiversity #CropWildRelatives

A pan-generic marker panel for apples to enable genetic research and breeding across Malus species - Euphytica Wild Malus species harbor untapped genetic diversity to advance apple breeding, particularly for disease resistance and stress tolerance. However, existing marker panels, developed mainly using Malus domestica accessions, introduce ascertainment bias and limit detecting rare variants in wild species. We developed and validated a medium-density and cost-effective pan-generic 3 K apple DArTag panel optimized to capture genome-wide variation across the Malus genus. The panel was constructed using conserved, syntenic, and collinear genomic blocks identified within the core genome of 13 Malus accessions for cross-species transferability. The panel was validated across three bi-parental mapping populations totaling 593 progeny. Across these populations, 2461–3234 SNP markers were polymorphic and 1482–2620 were informative. Each population contained over 900 multiallelic micro-haplotype loci, with several hundred loci exhibiting three or four distinct haplotypes. Markers were uniformly distributed across all 17 chromosomes, each containing between 60 and 230 informative SNPs. The panel was further evaluated on 174 diverse germplasm accessions from 20 Malus species. It exhibited strong cross-species transferability, exceptionally low rates of missing data (< 0.5%), and clear genetic differentiation between wild and domesticated accessions. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) identified a major locus on chromosome 4 significantly linked to fruit length, weight, and width in addition to trait-specific associations on chromosomes 1, 6, 9, and 11. The cost-effectiveness of genotyping per sample (< $15), combined with these results, underscore the panel’s broad utility for quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping in bi-parental and diverse populations, marker-assisted selection in the breeding programs, and genetic diversity analysis across the Malus genus.

We just published a new cost-effective marker platform for QTL mapping, GWAS, MAS & diversity studies across the Malus genus. This is particularly valuable for apple genetics & breeding that utilize wild species.

If you are interested in this platform, email me

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

My favorite time of the day from my favorite spot in our home village in Kashmir! In the distance you can see Sarsawa & Kotli. It is just amazing. Turn up the volume to enjoy it fully.

We have these in our orchard in the Upstate New York. I know other people also grow them in North America and Europe.

One of these is Robert’s crab and others are from European breeding programs. Please see here for more details:

kissabel.com

and

lucyapples.com