Awais Khan
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khan-awais.bsky.social
Awais Khan
@khan-awais.bsky.social
Assoc. Professor @Cornell University; Passionate about #PlantGenetics #GeneticDiversity #PlantBreeding #Agriculture #Traveling #Nature #Food; Alumni of @ETH @uniGoettingen @UniofYork @UofIllinois @CGIAR, From: J&Kashmir, Lived:🇵🇰🇩🇪🇨🇭🇬🇧🇺🇸🇵🇪🇹🇷
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
November 27, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Plums or apples? These are red-fleshed Robert’s Crab apples!
November 16, 2025 at 5:36 PM
October is National Apple Month. Enjoy & share this beautiful display of diversity of apples & their wild relatives!
October 26, 2025 at 9:11 PM
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
October 22, 2025 at 9:41 PM
A simplified domestication history of apples for today’s #NationalAppleDay! Share to celebrate!
October 21, 2025 at 5:35 PM
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
October 14, 2025 at 12:44 AM
Enjoy reading our recent publication! Fine mapping of apple scab resistance locus from Honeycrisp!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 7, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Are you familiar with Aport & Amasya apples? Enjoy reading a tale of two heirloom apples: Aport and Amasya!

goodfruit.com/good-to-know...
October 3, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Enjoy & feel free to share! Diversity in size, color & shape of domesticated #Apples & their wild relatives! Photo credits, Awais Khan Cornell University.

#GeneticDiversity #CropWildRelatives
October 2, 2025 at 2:36 AM
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...
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.
link.springer.com
September 26, 2025 at 8:59 PM
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.
September 26, 2025 at 1:42 AM
These are not plums, they are apples! These are red-fleshed Robert’s Crab apples. They are crispy, tart & aromatic.
September 23, 2025 at 12:34 AM
Two years ago today, I hiked Kyrgyzstan’s Tien Shan Mountains & found the Malus sieversii, the wild apples that are the main proginators of today’s domesticated varieties.
September 11, 2025 at 2:42 AM
𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 & 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 & 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐞. 𝐌𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐬: 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠!

Any subject can have scope if you do it with passion and commitment, and none if you barely do it!

Scope and success comes from commitment, not just following trends!
August 5, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Amazing views from the Zürich Hill Viewpoint in Malico, San Nicolas, Pangasinan, Philippines (1675 masl). I was not expecting to see Zurich & the Swiss flag here, but I can definitely see the resemblance —- I suppose mountains & beautiful landscapes always switch on certain genes in me!
July 6, 2025 at 7:41 PM
Reposted by Awais Khan
A new preprint from @khan-awais.bsky.social proposing an efficient genetic framework to speed up mapping of moderate to major disease resistance loci in perennials.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Development of an open-pollinated genetic mapping framework to facilitate the identification of QTL in apples
Genetic mapping of traits in apples ( Malus domestica ), a temperate woody perennial, is challenging due to high heterozygosity, long juvenility, and extensive spatial maintenance requirements for the...
www.biorxiv.org
July 1, 2025 at 7:43 AM
Read & share our new preprint! We have developed & validated a cost-effective pan-generic marker panel for #Apples to capture genome-wide variations across the Malus genus. Congratulations Dr. Aafreen Sakina & co-authors!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A pan-generic marker panel for apples to enable genetic research and breeding across Malus species
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 ...
www.biorxiv.org
June 9, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Beautiful display of fruit & autumn leaf color, size, & shape diversity of domesticated apples & their wild relatives!

#GeneticDiversity #CropWildRelatives #Apples
April 5, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Enjoy the diversity of red-fleshed #Apples in a slide show!

Someone mentioned to me during the coffee break today that one has to be careful when using the word "diversity" these days! Interesting times…
March 29, 2025 at 12:09 AM
I am deeply sympathetic to the graduate students applying & graduating this year in the US. They are going through very tough times due to uncertainties around admissions & hiring freezes.

Hang in there, you have successfully navigated a pandemic, and you will navigate these challenging times too.
March 15, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Do you agree that integrating apples into smallholder agroforestry systems in temperate regions particularly Central Asia & the Himalayas could significantly boost household income and nutrition?

Feel free to share your perspective, challenges or opportunities.
March 13, 2025 at 2:00 AM
Enjoy reading about our ongoing research to characterize fire blight resistance of North American native apples & to develop disease resistant pre-breeding lines using the magic of early flowering transgene!

www.goodfruit.com/crab-apples-...
Crab apples may hold keys for fire blight resistance
—by Matt MilkovichMalus
www.goodfruit.com
February 24, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Just spotted this in Samaná, Dominican Republic! Thanks to my colleagues at #USAID for their amazing work globally.
February 18, 2025 at 5:27 PM
How long until you are the other one?
February 14, 2025 at 2:21 AM