Genetic diversity and population structure of apple germplasm from Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey by SSRs

•Local apple cultivars have been grown without any pesticide application, despite the quite high rainfall and humidity, at the coastal zone of Eastern Black Sea region of Northeastern Anatolia.•SSR markers showed high level of genetic variation among the selected accessions. a clustering approach based on a Bayesian model indicated three subpopulations and admixture among the accessions.•The diverse germplasm could be explored in apple breeding programs for environmentally sustainable cultivar development.