In the olive breeding program of Córdoba, Spain, the first 15 obtained selections have recently been tested in a comparative field trial, including their genitors, ‘Arbequina’, ‘Frantoio’ and ‘Picual’, as a control. In this work, we report the evaluation of the fruit characteristics and ripening time of those selections. Average data recorded in the comparative field trial orchard in two consecutive harvest seasons were used for statistical analysis. A high degree of variability and significant differences between genotypes were obtained for all the fruit characteristics analysed, and for ripening time and extractability index. For most of those parameters, selections showing better values than the genitors have been found. In particular, many of the selections had higher oil content than the genitors. Data for seedling plants evaluation was significantly correlated with data of the reported field trial for fruit weight, fruit removal force/fruit weight ratio and oil content. This indicates that selection in the seedling stage for these characters can be efficiently performed, even when only the first year of agronomic evaluation of the seedling is considered. On the contrary, seedling selection for fruit moisture, fruit removal force and ripening date seems to be difficult to perform. In summary, the results of the agronomic evaluation suggest that some of the selections could be released as new olive cultivars in the near future, for first time in Spain.
Harvesting time influences fruit removal force, moisture, oil content, free fatty acids and peroxide in the oil of Frantoio and Manzanilla olive cultivars
