Abstract
This research focuses on the exploration, recovery and valorization of some minor Italian olive cultivars, about which little information is currently available. Autochthonous and unexplored germplasm has the potential to face unforeseen changes and thus to improve the sustainability of the whole olive system. A pattern of nine minor genotypes cultivated in three Italian regions has been molecularly fingerprinted with 12 nuclear microsatellites (SSRs), that were able to unequivocally identify all genotypes. Moreover, some of the principal phenolic compounds were determined and quantified in monovarietal oils and the expression levels of related genes were also investigated at different fruit developmental stages. Genotypes differed to the greatest extent in the content of oleacein (3,4-DHPEA-EDA) and total phenols. Thereby, minor local genotypes, characterized by stable production and resilience in a low-input agro-system, can provide a remarkable contribution to the improvement of the Italian olive production chain and can become very profitable from a socio-economic point of view.
Highlights
Olive (Olea europaea ssp. europaea) is considered among the historically and traditionally most important crops in the world and especially in the Mediterranean basin, where it has been cultivated for centuries for nutrition and for cultural and religious reasons
As a consequence of the general awareness about the loss of plant genetic diversity and the drastic climate change currently underway, the attention of the scientific community has been recently put toward more sustainable agriculture, as opposed to the intensive, mono-cultivar farming systems, and to the safeguard of plant biodiversity as source of new interesting traits
For olive, a valid and intriguing opportunity to help in overcoming these issues is offered by the unexploited or still poorly characterized germplasm, including local or minor genotypes, i.e., autochthonous landraces generally spread at regional level and well adapted to specific pedoclimatic conditions in traditional groves with very low agronomic input [4]
Summary
Olive (Olea europaea ssp. europaea) is considered among the historically and traditionally most important crops in the world and especially in the Mediterranean basin, where it has been cultivated for centuries for nutrition and for cultural and religious reasons. For olive, a valid and intriguing opportunity to help in overcoming these issues is offered by the unexploited or still poorly characterized germplasm, including local or minor genotypes, i.e., autochthonous landraces generally spread at regional level and well adapted to specific pedoclimatic conditions in traditional groves with very low agronomic input [4]. These genotypes could represent an interesting reservoir of useful traits, such as nutraceutical and antioxidant compounds and/or resistances to environmental stresses, that makes their diffusion in the market and their utilization in breeding programs extremely promising. Microsatellite markers (SSRs) are among the most simple, fast and economic molecular tools widely used for olive varietal identification [5,6,7,8] and for food tracking and tracing [9,10,11,12,13]
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