STUDIES ON THE SELF-FERTILITY OF SOME OLIVE CULTIVARS IN THE AREA OF CRETE

The self-fertility behaviour of different olive cultivars was studied from 1979 to 1984. The average fruit set of ‘Koronaiki’, ‘Mastoides’, ‘Kalamata’ and ‘Amfissis’ for 1979–1982 was 1.01, 0.60. 0.52 and 0.36 fruits per inflorescence respectively. It was shown that a considerable portion of fruit-set differences between the cultivars can be due to a varying degree of self-fertility and cross-pollination requirements. Important differences in fruit set were also found for the same cultivars but grown in different places. After the results of 1980–81 the cultivars ‘Kalokairida’, ‘Koutsourelia’, ‘Megaritiki’, ‘Thiaki’ and the Spanish ‘Manzanillo’ are nearly self-incompatible in the Cretan environment, were nearly all the other cultivars can be regarded as partially self-fertile.