Germplasm is maintenance of library of genetic resources for an organism. Germplasm can be stored as seeds, or whole plants in a nursery or orchard, or as cryopreserved dormant buds.

About 360 elite varieties/genotypes/plus trees have been identified. Efforts are underway to establish the apple germplasm repositories at YSPUHF, GBPIHED, Botany Department of Kashmir University, and at regional station Bhaderwah of Jammu University. Many of the identified genotypes have now been grafted in these germplasm repositories. Samples have been collected for DNA typing based characterization studies. Most significantly, we have now established a large number of hybrid seedlings from the crossing work. Our preliminary analysis of these seedlings reveals them to be true segregating hybrids and thus suitable for mapping/linkage analysis.

Similarly, significant work has been done to identify, standardize DNA markers for germplasm characterization as well as, mapping work. A total of 144 new markers (identified by in-silico analysis of the apple genome sequence) have now been developed/validated as suitable genetic markers. Allelic diversity analysis of ~160 apple genotypes ascertained using ca. 60 SSR markers show region specific variability in the apple germplasm available in India.