Morphological Traits Diversity in some Olive (Olea europaea L.) Genotypes over Kermanshah Province

Germplasm and reservation of genetical resources is the principal of plant breeding. Different techniques have been used to characterize olive diversity. Morphological criteria such as leaf, fruit, seed and growth behavior have been used to evaluate olive diversity, to determine the origin of olive trees as well. An evaluation of phenotypic diversity was used to discriminate olive cultivars with distinct morphological and pomological characters. Iran is one of the origins of olive in the world and it has considerable variation across Iran. Recently olive cultivation and orchard development has been encouraged in Iran. In this developmental project of olive culture, it is necessary to provide agreeable genotypes for cultivation. The present experiment was carried out to identify and evaluate local olive genotypes in Kermanshah province during 2004-2005. Those were located in six locations in Kermanshah province. Their morphological characters and oil content were investigated according to IOOC descriptor. Local genotype identification in this regions was based on morphological characters (Vegetative and reproductive) such as leaf, fruit, seed and growth behavior evaluated at four different growth phases, including onset of dormancy, flowering, fruit set and fruit growth in 39 local olive genotypes olive trees. The results of this study showed that there was a great variation among genotypes in Kermanshah province. Those variations was observed within and between regions. Significant correlation was observed between the fruit weight, with leaf width, stone weight and percentage of flesh, also significant correlation were observed between oil percentage in fresh fruit weight, with internode length and leaf width. Factor analysis showed that five factors with eigen values greater than one, explains the 69.62 percent of diversity. Among these factors, two biggest factors justified a high degree of diversity and genotypes were better than the other factors that were superior in terms of oil content and fruit weight. Generally it can be concluded that genotypes of Kermanshah province wide variety and traits are also high correlated with fruit weight and oil content and can properly use these genotypes and traits in breeding programs. Olea europaea L. represents one of the most important trees in the Mediterranean basin and the oldest cultivated plant. Among cultivated plants, the olive is the sixth most important oil crop in the world, presently spreading from the Mediterranean region of origin to new production areas, due to the beneficial nutritional properties of olive oil and to its high economic value. The Mediterranean basin is the traditional area of olive cultivation and has 95% of the olive orchards of the world. From the Mediterranean basin, olive cultivation is presently expanding into other regions. wide range of distribution, it is becoming increasingly urgent to identify plants into different ranges of distribution in the world to avoid cases of homonymy, synonymy and mislabeling so that a reliable classification of all varieties can be achieved without unnecessary confusion. In this paper, along with morphological characteristics the acquisition of additional information on biochemical markers is essential. This aspect represents a fundamental and indispensable step to preserve the main olive varieties and also to safeguard minor genotypes, in order to avoid a loss of genetic diversity. This research has focused on using morphological markers to characterize and identify olive varieties. Identification of different varieties using morphological characters (vegetative and reproductive) is one of the aims of the modern horticulture, because such a technique would greatly facilitate breeding programs and germplasm collection management. According to the results of this research, it can be concluded that there is a great variation among different genotypes. Variation was observed within and between regions. High correlation between the fruit weight and leaf width, stone weight and percentage of flesh was observed, also high correlation between oil percentage in fresh fruit weight, with internode length and leaf width were observed. Factor analysis showed that five factors with eigen values greater than one, explains the 69.62 percent of diversity. Among these factors, two biggest factors justified a high degree of diversity and genotypes were better than others of the factors that were superior in terms of oil content and fruit weight. Generally it can be concluded that olive genotypes of Kermanshah province can properly use in breeding programs