The World of Apples

Apple varieties, Turkey

Amasya

Anatolia's own winter apple: 6 per cent of Turkey's crop in 2020; in 2024 only 1.03 per cent of it grew at Amasya

History

The Amasya apple (Amasya elması) is held to have originated in Anatolia, in Amasya province2. In 2003 Turkish researchers called it the most widely grown standard variety among the 460 apple varieties grown in Turkey2. But it bears only every other year, and growers were turning to mostly foreign varieties; even in Amasya its orchards were being replaced with cherries, and the variety had, they wrote, “reached the point of eradication”2. Selections that bear more regularly have been sought, among them the Kaşel apples, chosen around Niğde in a study published in 19852.

It remains one of Turkey’s most important native varieties: 6 per cent of the country’s 4,300,486 tonnes of apples in 2020, and 26 per cent of Amasya province’s 34,131 tonnes3. In 2024 Turkey grew 237,219 tonnes of Amasya apples, only 1.03 per cent of them in Amasya province4.

In 2019 the apple of the province’s central district and six others was registered as a designation of origin, the Amasya Misket apple (Amasya Misket Elması)1; Kızılaslan and Kılıç note that Gala, Fuji and other apples are sold under the name3. The registration cites a Roman-period mosaic floor showing an apple tree, found at Yavru near Amasya and thought to be about 2,000 years old, as evidence of apple growing there since then1.

The National Fruit Collection in Kent keeps an apple received from Turkey in 1947 as Nigde5; a 2020 DNA study gave its genotype the name Amasya and found it diploid6.

The fruit

The fruit is medium-sized, with a thin, hard, waxy skin, deep glossy red where it meets the sun and light red elsewhere, with bright green ground showing in places1,2. The registration gives 100 to 165 g and 10 to 14 per cent soluble solids1. The flesh is slightly greenish white, firm, crisp, sweet and juicy, with a strong fragrance1,2. Dew followed by sun brings out the red in autumn; fruit inside the canopy stays green1. Picked in the second half of September or early October, it keeps until May1,2, in cold stores in rooms of its own or in a kara depo, a store on the lower floor of the farmhouse1. The National Fruit Collection’s tree, in Kent, bears fruit streaked brown over green-yellow, with fairly coarse, crisp, fairly sweet flesh; it flowers at the end of April and is picked in mid-October5.

Growing

The registration gives its chilling requirement as 2,536 hours, against Amasya’s average of 2,526 hours in 1970–20141. The trees grow tall and spreading and are planted 8 or 10 m apart; on seedling stocks they bear from their seventh or eighth year and crop for 35 to 50 years1. Each bud sets five or six fruits and sheds half of them unaided, so the crop is not thinned; Golden Delicious serves as the pollinator1.

Uses

A dessert apple, it is also dried to be eaten through the year1.

Where the sources disagree

  • The mosaic. The registration takes it as evidence of 2,000 years of apple growing at Amasya1; Kızılaslan and Kılıç, as showing that the Amasya apple itself has been the town’s emblem for that long3.
  • Size and season. 100 to 165 g, picked from the second half of September1; or 80 to 100 g, picked from the second week of September2.
  • Nigde. The National Fruit Collection gives no other name for Nigde5; its identification as Amasya rests on the 2020 study, which named genotypes from documented synonyms and matching accessions in other collections6.
Amasya
Where Amasya came from.

Sources

  1. Designation of origin no. 424: Amasya Misket apple (in Turkish), Türk Patent ve Marka Kurumu (Turkish Patent and Trademark Office); registered by the Amasya provincial directorate of food, agriculture and livestock, 2019-03-14. Supports: registered on 14 March 2019, on an application of 8 January 2016, for seven districts of Amasya province (Merkez, Suluova, Merzifon, Gümüşhacıköy, Hamamözü, Taşova and Göynücek); the Roman-period mosaic floor with an apple tree, thought to be 2,000 years old, found in rescue excavations at Yavru village by Hitit University's Black Sea Archaeology Research Centre and taken as evidence of 2,000 years of apple growing in Amasya; medium-sized fruit with a thin, hard, waxy skin, dark and glossy where sunned, light red elsewhere, with bright green ground in places; flesh slightly greenish white, sweet, juicy and crisp, with a strong scent and aroma of its own; good eating quality; picked in the second half of September or early October and keeping until May; drying to let the apple be eaten all year; separate rooms in cold stores, and the kara depo on the lower floor of growers' houses; dew followed by sun giving the bright red between 15 September and 30 October, fruit inside the tree staying green; 100–165 g and 10–14% soluble solids; chilling requirement of 2,536 hours against Amasya's mean of 2,526 hours in 1970–2014; a tall and spreading habit and 8 × 8 or 10 × 10 m spacing; bearing at 7–8 years on seedling stocks, with an economic life of 35–50 years; alternate bearing; five or six fruits per bud, half shed unaided, so no thinning; Golden Delicious used as pollinator.
  2. Clonal selection in apple (Malus domestica Borkh cv. Amasya), Nejdet Kaplan, Muharrem Özcan and Menşure Çelik, Pakistan Journal of Botany 35(4): 571–578, 2003. Supports: Amasya "originated in Anatolia", Amasya province being "the origin of Amasya apple cultivar"; of 460 cultivars grown in Turkey (after Özbek, 1978), Amasya, "a winter cultivar", is "the widest-grown standard cultivar"; medium-sized fruit of 80–100 g, hard-fleshed and waxy, dark on the sunny side and light red elsewhere on a green ground; flesh slightly greenish white, sweet, juicy and crisp; harvested in the second week of September or early October and stored until May; alternate bearing, growers switching to mainly foreign cultivars and orchards in Amasya replaced with cherries, so that Amasya "has reached the point of eradication"; a selection study on its alternate bearing around Niğde (Eltez and Kaşka, 1985) whose ten chosen types were named Kaşel apples.
  3. Analysis of growers' knowledge of the geographical indication registration of the Amasya Misket apple and of the factors affecting it (in Turkish), Nuray Kızılaslan and Sefa Kılıç, Gaziosmanpaşa Bilimsel Araştırma Dergisi 11(2): 208–218, 2022. Supports: the Amasya Misket apple one of Turkey's most important native varieties; TÜİK 2020: Amasya apples 6% of Turkey's 4,300,486 t of apples and 26% of Amasya province's 34,131 t; Gala, Fuji and other apples sold under the Amasya Misket name, lowering its price; the Yavru mosaics read as showing the Amasya apple to have been the town's emblem for more than 2,000 years.
  4. Amasya agricultural investment guide 2025 (in Turkish), Tarım Reformu Genel Müdürlüğü, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, from TÜİK data, 2025. Supports: Table 4 (TÜİK 2024): Amasya apples, 237,219 t in Turkey and 2,455 t (1.03%) in Amasya province.
  5. Nigde (accession 1947 - 383), National Fruit Collection, Brogdale, Kent (Defra). Supports: "Received by NFT 1947. From Turkey."; no synonyms given; characterisation at Brogdale: medium, conical, 60 mm wide, green-yellow ground colour with brown streaked over-colour, coarse white flesh; "fairly coarse, crisp flesh with a fairly sweet flavour"; 10% flowering on 30 April; picked in mid-October.
  6. Using whole-genome SNP data to reconstruct a large multi-generation pedigree in apple germplasm, Hélène Muranty and others, BMC Plant Biology 20: 2, with Additional file 1 (Table S1), 2020. Supports: Table S1: the National Fruit Collection's accession 1947383 genotyped as the unique genotype MUNQ 440, preferred name Amasya, diploid (2n); preferred names given "on the basis of documented synonymy, collection listings, websites and reference pomological books, in addition to information about matching accessions".