Early selection for oil quality components in olive breeding progenies

Olive oil is highly valued for its nutritional quality mainly determined by its fatty acid composition together with the presence of several biologically active minor components. In olive breeding programs, these oil quality components are normally evaluated in the later stages of selection because oil extraction is not suitable for being performed in large seedling progenies with initial low yield. In the present work, we evaluate the ability of open pollinated progenies of 17 olive cultivars located in a large germplasm bank as a means of generate genetic variability for oil quality components directly measured in fruit. High degree of variability was found for most of the oil quality components analyzed, including some cases of transgressive segregation. Narrow-sense heritability greatly varies among traits, being particularly high for sterol content. Lack of correlation among fruit traits previously reported and oil quality traits suggest the possibility of simultaneous breeding for most of them. In summary, open pollination of cultivars from a germplasm bank together with early evaluation directly in fruit seems to be a convenient strategy for breeding for oil quality traits on olive.This work has been partly supported by research project P11-AGR-7301 from the Andalusian Regional Government Council of Innovation and Science.Peer reviewe