Fun facts about our favourite fruit ahead of National Apple Day

Apple Day events can be large or small, from apple games in a garden to large village fairs with cookery demonstrations, games, apple identification, juice and cider, gardening advice, and the sale of many hundreds of apple varieties.

Apple Day was initiated by Common Ground on October 21 1990 at an event in Covent Gardenand has been celebrated in each subsequent year.

By 2000 the day was celebrated in more than 600 events around the United Kingdom.

Dorset-based charity Common Ground describes the day as a way of celebrating and demonstrating that variety and richness matter to a locality and that it is possible to effect change in your place.

Common Ground has used the apple as a symbol of the physical, cultural and genetic diversity we should not let slip away. In linking particular apples with their place of origin, it hopes that orchards will be recognised and conserved for their contribution to local distinctiveness, including the rich diversity of wildlife they support.

Apple Day has been celebrated by the villagers in the BBC Radio 4 soap-opera The Archers.

Fun facts about apples:

Archaeologists have found evidence that people have been eating apples since 6,500B.C.

2. The science of growing apples is called pomology.

3. There are more than 7,500 apple varieties in the world — about 2,500 varieties grown in the United States. About 100 of those are sold commercially. Apples are the second-most valuable fruit grown in the U.S. (oranges being the first).