Documentary traces apple's origin to China

A documentary broadcast on Monday traces the origins of the apple to the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, quashing the popularly held Chinese belief that they were introduced to the country from the West.

The documentary, "Saving the Gene Pool", draws on a multitude of scientific evidence to show that all cultivated apple varieties are offshoots of Malus sieversii, a wild apple native to the Tianshan mountain range in Central Asia.

Many Chinese attribute the introduction of the apple to China by John Livingston Nevius (1829-93), a US Christian missionary. Livingstone and his wife were said to have brought apple seedlings with them to Yantai, Shandong province, now a major apple growing region.