EVALUATION OF GENETIC DIVERSITY IN LIGURIA REGION OLIVE (OLEA EUROPAEA L.) GERMPLASM BY SSR MARKERS

The molecular characterization of olive germplasm is an essential task in the modern olive culture.
Genetic identification is important to protect and to preserve the local genetic resources, to safeguard the typical oils and to certificate the propagation material.
In olive tree, cultivar identification is still a complex problem despite the enormous progress in molecular marker techniques.
Olive germplasm is huge, spread by hundreds of year’s vegetative propagation globally and the same genotype frequently changes its common name when grown in different regions.
In Liguria region, the surface cultivated with olive tree represents only 1.35% of the Italian olive surface.
However, this region has an important role as producer of high quality DOP oils.
The information on the pomological classification of Liguria cultivars are relative few.
The aim of this work is to evaluate by SSR markers, the genetic diversity of Liguria olive germplasm.
The plants analyzed were obtained from olives collected and conserved by the Liguria Regional Council in Santo Stefano Magra (La Spezia) germplasm conservation field.

V International Symposium on Olive Growing

T. Bracci, L. Sebastiani, M. Busconi, C. Fogher

molecular markers, genetic identification, genomic DNA

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2008.791.21