Abstract
An olive breeding program was started in Tunisia in 1993 in order mainly to improve the fatty acid composition of the local cultivar ‘Chemlali Sfax’. ‘Zeitoun Ennour’ is a new cultivar obtained from a cross between ‘Chemlali Sfax’ and the local dual-purpose use cultivar ‘Chemchali Gafsa’. The morphological study of this cultivar showed that eleven characters dealing with fruit and endocarp differed from ‘Chemlali Sfax’, mainly regarding to their respective weights. This new cultivar had the same sensitivity to Verticillium dahliae Kleb and earlier bearing than the original variety. Its olive production was considered as high as for ‘Chemlali Sfax’ but with partial self-compatibility and late maturity. The new cultivar realized a net improvement in comparison with the original cultivar particularly regarding its fatty acid composition with very high oleic acid content (>75 %) and low palmitic and linoleic acid contents (<10 %). The new cultivar was recently released and will be available for growers as soon as possible.
Highlights
Attempts to develop new olive cultivars have been carried out in many olive-producing countries (Italy, Turkey, Israel, Spain, Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, China, Ukraine and Turkmenistan) as reported by Bellini et al (2008)
An olive breeding program was started in Tunisia in 1993 in order mainly to improve the fatty acid composition of the local cultivar ‘Chemlali Sfax’
The new cultivar realized a net improvement in comparison with the original cultivar regarding its fatty acid composition with very high oleic acid content (>75 %) and low palmitic and linoleic acid contents (
Summary
Attempts to develop new olive cultivars have been carried out in many olive-producing countries (Italy, Turkey, Israel, Spain, Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, China, Ukraine and Turkmenistan) as reported by Bellini et al (2008). Most of these programs have focused on crossbreeding among the most outstanding cultivars in their respective countries. Was crossed with both autochthonous and foreign olive varieties as pollen donors, yielding 1,200 seedlings The goal of this program was to improve the acidic composition the oil, since ‘Chemlali Sfax’ has low oleic acid (55%) and high palmitic acid (19.6%) (Zarrouk et al, 2009; Bellini et al, 2008). According to Zarrouk et al (2009), monounsaturated fatty acids have great
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