MORPHOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF ANCIENT OLIVE GENOTYPES ACROSS THE ZAGROS MOUNTAINS OF IRAN

Iran with various numbers of different olive cultivars and a considerable number of old olive orchards is one of the known origins of olive among a few in the world. Therefore, evaluation and classification of existing olive genotypes in Iran is crucial. In this study we used morphological characteristics to identify ancient olive cultivars collected from 5 provinces across the Zagros Mountains (West of Iran), which are situated at different altitudes and consist of various climates. 25 ancient olive samples were collected from 5 provinces representing the olive population of the regions. Through the use of variance analysis, the studied quantitative characters revealed significant differences between cultivars and clearly separated them from each other. The genotypes were separated based on their origin of collection, which demonstrates isolation of the groups of representative genotypes based on their ecological location. Results showed new evidence of the high degree of genetic biodiversity among olive germplasm from different parts of Iran.