IDENTIFICATION OF MOLECULAR MARKERS LINKED WITH SOME HORTICULTURE CHARACTERISTICS OF SOME OLIVE (Olea europaea L.) CULTIVARS

Abstract

New olive vegetative clone namely (Clone AO13) and two olive cultivars namely (Manzanillo and Picual) grown in the orchard of the Abou Tesht region, Qena governorate, were examined and evaluated during 2011 and 2012 seasons for some of their vegetative, flowering, fruit set characteristics and fruit properties i.e. shoot length, leaf area, flower density, inflorescence length, total number of flowers per inflorescence, sexual expression%, initial fruit set%, horticulture fruit set%, fruit drop%, fruit weight (g) and pulp/fruit%. RAPD-PCR (polymerase chain reaction randomly amplified polymorphic DNA) analysis was performed to assess the genetic variation for these characteristics between two olive cultivars and clone AO13. The obtained results showed that, the leaf area was highest in Picual cv. followed by the other two cultivars. In Manzanillo cv. flower density and total number of flowers per inflorescence were the highest values compared to the other two cultivars, but, Clone AO13 gave the highest value of the sexual expression%, especially in the first season, Clone AO13 was the highest in initial fruit set followed by the other two cultivars. On the other hand, there were no significant differences among studied cultivars in the horticulture fruit set% as well as fruit weight and pulp/fruit%. Dendrogram tree generated across RAPD analysis demonstrated that, the three tested olive cultivars in this study were highly similar at the DNA level. The highest similarity value was observed between Manzanillo and Picual cultivars (86.1%), while the lowest similarity was recorded between Manzanillo cv. and Clone AO13 (77.5%). Some RAPD markers may be linked to some flowering and fruit set characteristics such as sexual expression% (two primers A17- 650 bp and C12- 700 bp), initial fruit set% (six primers, from B12 at 180 bp to B18 at 750 bp) and fruit drop% (seven primers, from B12 at 190 bp to M02 at 800 bp)