LOOKING TOWARDS TOMORROW IN OLIVE GROWING: CHALLENGES IN BREEDING
Olive cultivars have been local and empirically selected and vegetatively propagated in all Mediterranean and Circum-Mediterranean countries since 5,500-6000 years BP. After the 15th Century cultivars from these countries were introduced in America and in other continents generating only few new cultivars.
The systematic cataloguing and agronomic evaluation of the cultivars in the world and breeding was proposed for the first time at the VII International Oleiculture Congress (Sevilla, 1924). Afterwards, exploration and cataloguing of cultivars with morphological descriptors progressed slowly in many countries.
Studies of variability with molecular markers began by the 1980s in traditional cultivars, wild olives and related species evidencing a huge available legacy of diversity.
The establishment of a World Network of Olive Genetic Resources by the IOC is being developed since 1994. Very few efforts on agronomic evaluation of cultivars in field trials have been carried out in most countries.
Planned networks of field trials would certainly have avoided many cases of non-adapted cultivars in new olive growing areas of the world.
The intensification of olive growing after War World II triggered both, the standardization of the cultivars in new plantations and the development of breeding programs searching for cultivars adapted to diverse growing environments and to new planting systems.
The advances in these programs have already provided new cultivars and preclude that a new generation of cultivars and rootstocks is coming.
Since the end of the 2010s new works on genetics and genomics herald the arrival of these technologies to the olive world.
This presentation focuses on the current works, advances and perspectives on the conservation, sustainable use and breeding genetic resources for tomorrows olive growing.
Rallo, L. (2014). LOOKING TOWARDS TOMORROW IN OLIVE GROWING: CHALLENGES IN BREEDING. Acta Hortic. 1057, 467-482
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2014.1057.59
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2014.1057.59
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2014.1057.59
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2014.1057.59
Olea europaea L., genetic resources, evaluation and adaptation of cultivars, clonal selection, breeding
English