Olive Olea europaea L.

Abstract

The olive is a very important tree crop species cultivated by its fruits, which constitute a very valuable food product. The economic importance of olive have greatly increased the demand for improved cultivars. Somatic embryogenesis is the regeneration method normally used in olive and, therefore, it is at the base of application of important biotechnological tools such as genetic transformation, somaclonal variation, in vitro mutagenesis, in vitro selection, protoplast manipulation or somatic hybridization. It also constitutes an important complement of conventional breeding programs due to its utilization for large-scale clonal propagation and germplasm cryopreservation. In this chapter, protocols for olive somatic embryogenesis are described. Due to different requirements for inducing somatic embryogenesis from juvenile and mature tissues, protocols for both types of initial explants are detailed. The more common procedures currently used for executing the subsequent phases of proliferation, development and maturation of somatic embryos and embryo germination are also described. In vivo establishment of olive plants regenerated via somatic embryogenesis is pointed out, detailing the protocols normally used for shoots micropropagation, root induction and plant acclimatization. Quality of obtained plants and their genetic stability are discussed.