Floral Behavior, Fruit Characteristics and Oil Quality of Some Olive Cultivars

Ahmed, Zienab F. R.; Taha, Eman M A; Abd-Elkarim, Naglaa A A

doi:10.21608/ejoh.2019.11082.1103

Floral Behavior, Fruit Characteristics and Oil Quality of Some Olive Cultivars "Olea europaea L."

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Horticulture Department, Collage of Agriculture, South Valley University, Qena 83523 Egypt

² Food Science Department, South Valley University- qena

³ Food Science Department, South Valley University-Qena

10.21608/ejoh.2019.11082.1103

Abstract

Olive consumption is increased around the world due to the organoleptic characteristics and medicinal values of its fruit and oil. To meet this demand, increasing the cultivated area of olive becomes essential in areas rather than the Mediterranean basin. In this respect, some olive cultivars (cvs.) ’Koroneiki’, ‘Dolci’, ‘Carotina’ and ‘Maraki’ were cultivatedat the Research Center of South Valley University, Qena. The objective of this study was to monitorand evaluate these cultivars’ adaptation under Qena environmental conditions. The flowering behavior, fruit set, fruit growth, and the oil qualityof these four cultivars were assessed for two seasons (2016-2017). The results showed that the growth season began two weeks earlier than usual for all cultivars. ‘Koroneiki’ cv. had highest number of panicles per shoot but lowest number of flowers per panicle compared to the other cultivars.Despite that, the initial fruit set was high in all cultivars, fruit retention was varied. ‘Koroneiki’ had higher number of fruit per shoot followed by ‘Dolci’, ‘Maraki’ and ‘Carotina’. The fruit weight and size were slightly lower than the typical known for all cultivars grown in other regions. ‘Maraki’ cv. had the highest percentage of oil followed by ‘Carotina’, ‘Koroneiki’ and then ‘Dolci’. The quality indexes of the oil were within the limits of the stander extra version olive oil for all studied cultivars. Our results revealedthat, each olive cultivar had regular morphological characteristics, fruit propertiesandoilquality, suggesting that these cultivars were able to adaptQena’senvironmental conditions and gave high quality virgin oil.

Keywords