Selections of an Olive Breeding Program Identified by Microsatellite Markers

Abstract

This work reports on the use of 10 microsatellites for identifying and testing the paternity of the first 17 selections of an olive (Olea europaea L.) breeding program in Córdoba, Spain. The usefulness of the microsatellites was confirmed by the high discrimination power and polymorphism information content values and by the low probability of identity found in the 24 main Spanish cultivars. In the selections from the crosses ‘Picual’ × ‘Arbequina’ and ‘Frantoio’ × Picual, the putative male parent was the expected one. In the individuals coming from putative selfings of Arbequina and Picual and from the putative crosses Frantoio × Arbequina, Arbequina × Frantoio and Picual × Frantoio, the male paternity assigned a priori was wrong. Only three microsatellites were needed to discriminate all the selections and to differentiate them from the 24 main cultivars. The probability of having a seedling with a certain allele combination for the 10 microsatellites was 7.63e‐06, in the case of Arbequina × Picual and the reciprocal cross, and 1.53e‐05 for the cross Frantoio × Picual. A dendrogram generated using the Dice similarity coefficient and the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) agglomeration method showed every selection grouped with one of their two parents.