engleski

Determination of the compatibility relationships between olive cultivars: An overview of available methods

Olive (Olea europaea L.) is a wind-pollinated preferentially allogamous species. However, inconsistent results are reported about the classification of some cultivars as self-compatible or self-incompatible, probably because of the influence of management and environmental conditions during bloom. Cross-pollination significantly enhances fertilization and fruit set in most cultivars. However, this improvement partly depends on the compatibility relationship between recipient and pollenizer trees. A few cases of cross-incompatibility have been reported in olive. Different methods have been used to evaluate the success in pollination assays. The most common method for the determination of compatibility is based on the observation of pollen-pistil interaction in cross-pollination trials. This method implies the usage of pollination bags to prevent the access of unwanted pollen grains to the stigmas of recipient flowers and the subsequent observation of pollen- pistil interaction features (pollen adhesion, pollen germination, pollen tube growth in the pistil and fertilization) and/or initial and final fruit set in response to experimental crosses. Lately, simple sequence repeats (SSRs) or microsatellites, are increasingly becoming the markers of choice for paternity analysis of seeds to measure the success of the crosses, especially when potential pollen donors are multiple and not applied by hand. SSRs offer a reliable way to test the paternity of seeds and seedlings by checking the presence of parental alleles in the progenies. The knowledge of self-compatibility and cross-compatibility relationships of olive cultivars are a vital factor in the success of olive crosses and, therefore, of breeding programs. The advantages and drawbacks of the different methods to evaluate compatibility relationships within and between olive cultivars will be presented in this work.

Olea europaea; pollen-pistil interaction; fruit set; simple sequence repeats (SSRs); self-compatibility; cross-compatibility

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