Flowering, Fruiting of Two Table Olive Cultivars “Olea europaea L.” Grown in Southern Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Author

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

Abstract

Olive is an evergreen tree that is well adapted to hot and dry climate, but requiresspecific chilling units for flowering. Olive is grown for table usage and oil production that is known for its organoleptic properties and health benefits. The area of olive production is increased in the new cultivated land such as in south Egypt. The present study is conducted to evaluate the flowering behavior and fruit characteristics of two table olive cultivars (cvs.)’ Toffahi ‘and  ‘Aggizi’ that firstly grown in southern Egypt (Qena) during seasons 2016 and 2017. The growth season began early in February as the flowering bud appeared. There was variation in floral behavior between the studied cultivars. ‘Toffahi’ cv. had significantly longer flowering shoot with higher number of inflorescence (IFC) compared to ‘Aggizi’ cv. The IFC in the top and middle of the shoots were longer than that in the base in both cultivars, however, the flower number per IFC located in the shoot top and middle was higher in ‘Toffahi’ than ‘Aggizi’ cv. Despite that there were significant differences in flower number/ IFC and perfect flower percentage between ‘Toffahi’ and ‘Aggizi’, the fruit set percentage was not significant. Although the initial fruit number per shoot was higher in’Toffahi’ than ‘Aggizi’, the dropped fruits number was higher that making the final fruit number per shoot not significantly higher. The fruit characteristics such as: weight, size, length, width, flesh/stone ratio, moisture and oil contents were similar to the typical known for both cultivars.
Our results showedthatbothtableolive cultivars ‘Toffahi’ and ‘Aggizi’were able to adapt the new condition andmaintained the regular floral behavior and good fruit characteristics, suggesting that these cultivars can successfully be grown under southern Egypt conditions.

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