The Israeli olive germplasm collection

The IOC’s network of olive germplasm collections includes six collections – Spain, Italy, Morocco, Turkey, Argentina and Israel. This network become invaluable and instrumental epicenters of the olive world shared heritage, both in terms of agrobiodiversity in a larger sense, and of olive trees in particular. These banks, which house many hundreds of olive tree varieties, serve as conservation and research centers of their plant material with a view to benefitting the scientific community.

Figure 1 – The IOC Head of the olive growing, olive technology and environment Unit, Lhassane Sikaoui, and the Head of the Technical Cooperation and Training Department, Catarina Bairrao Balula, in their visit to the Israeli olive germplasm collection

The list of cultivars in the Israeli olive germplasm collection, including the origin and use

n	Cultivar	Origin	Purpose (Oil, Table or Dual purpose)
1	Amigdalolia	Greece	D mainly T
2	Amigdalolia Nana	Greece	D
3	Arauco	Argentina	T
4	Arbequina	Spain	O
5	Arbosana	Spain	O
6	Ascolana	Italy	T
7	Askal	Israel	O
8	Azapa	Chile	T
9	Baladi	Lebanon	O
10	Barnea	Israel	O
11	Benjamina	Israel	O
12	Biancet	?	O
13	Biancolilla	Italy	O
14	Bosana	Italy	O
15	Broza	Israel	T
16	Cakir	Turkey	D
17	Canino	Italy	O
18	Carolea	Italy	T
19	Carrasquenha	Portugal	T
20	Chalkidiki	Greece	T
21	Changlot Real	Spain	O
22	Chemlali	Tunis	O
23	Comun de Sicilia	Ilaly
24	Coratina	Italy	O
25	Cornezuelo	Spain	T
26	Cucco	Italy	T
27	Dan	Syria	T
28	Dolce Agogia	Italy	O
29	Domat	Turkey	T
30	Empeltre	Spain	O
31	Fadel	Israel	D
32	Farga	Spain	D mainly O
33	Frangivento	Italy	O
34	Frantoio	Italy	O
35	FRS-2	Australia	O
36	G. de Sardinia	Italy	T
37	G. de Sicily	Italy	T
38	Galega	Portugal	O
39	Gemlik	Turkey	D
40	Giarraffa	Italy	T
41	Ginati	Israel	D
42	Hebroni	Palestine	T
43	Hojiblanca	Spain	D mainly O
44	Imperial	Spain	O
45	Ispaniki	Spain	O
46	Jabaluna	Spain	O
47	Jericho	Palestine	T
48	Kadesh	Israel	T
49	Kadeshon	Israel	T
50	Kalamata (Kalamon)	Greece	D
51	Konservolia	Greece	T
52	Koroneiki	Greece	O
53	Leccino	Italy	O
54	Leccio	Italy	O
55	Lechin de sev.	Spain	O
56	Leuco Carpa	Italy	O
57	Lucques (Luke)	Ftence	D
58	Maalot	Israel	O
59	Manzanillo	Spain	D mainly T
60	Marfil	Spain	O
61	Masepo	Israel	T
62	Maurino	Italy	O
63	MCSSON 0517	?
64	Memecik	Turkey	D
65	Merhavia	Israel	T
66	Mignolo	Italy	O
67	Mission New Norcia	?	O
68	Moraiolo	Italy	O
69	Moresca	Italy	D
70	Morrut	Spain	O
71	Muhasan	Palestine	D
72	Nabali	Palestine	D
73	Nasuchi	Palestine	T
74	Nevadillo blanco	Spain	D
75	Niedda de gonnos	Italy	D
76	Nocellara Etnea	Italy	D
77	Oblonga	USA	O
78	Olea Cuspidata
79	Olea Oleaster	Italy
80	ORS	Australia	O
81	Paragon	Australia	O
82	Pendolino	Italy	O
83	Picholine Languedoc	France	D
84	Picholine Marocaine	Marocco	D
85	Picual	Spain	O
86	Picual III	Spain	O
87	Picudo	Spain	O
88	Pizz'e Carroga	Italy	O
89	Rama Pendula	Italy	O
90	Round Greek	Greece	T
91	Rowi	?
92	Rubra	?	O
93	Saiali Magloub	Tunis
94	San Francisco	Italy	O
95	Sant' Agostino	Italy	T
96	Santa Caterina	Italy	T
97	Sepoka	Israel	T
98	Sevillano Aust	Spain	T
99	Shami	Syria	T
100	Sigoise	Algeria	D
101	Sorani	Syria	D
102	Souri	Lebanon Israel	D
103	Taggiasca	Italy	O
104	Tamir	Israel	O
105	Tanche	France	D
106	Tell	Algeria	D
107	Tlemcen	Algeria	D
108	Toffahi	Egypt	T
109	Tonda calliari	Italy	D
110	Tonda oliana	Italy	D
111	UC13A6	USA	T
112	Uovo di Piccione	Italy	T
113	Uslu	Turky	D
114	Vasilikada	Greece
115	Verdial	Spain	O
116	Verdial De Jaen	Spain	O
117	Zarza	Spain
118	Zarzamora	?
119	Zorzariega	Spain	D

The Israeli olive germplasm collection consist of 119 cultivars planted in 1995 at the Volcani institute (ARO) in Bet Dagan. Each cultivar is represented by three irrigated trees. This collection includes oil producing strains, as well as table olive cultivars from different geographic origins and represents the most popular varieties grown around the world.

Figure 2 – The Israeli germplasm collection

The Israeli olive breeding program began 50 years ago and is based on self, cross and free fertilization between various cultivars. For this purpose, this germplasm collection was established. This collection was gathered from all over the world. It consists of a hundred and nineteen accessions characterized by considerable phenotypic variation. This resource has served as a “genome bank” for generating new, improved cultivars.

Figure 3 - Morphological variation among fruits of all cultivars from the Israeli germplasm collection. Fruits of all analyzed cultivars are presented. Each cultivar is represented by one fruit and the variation of fruit size and shape between cultivars can be assessed.

We used next generation sequencing technology for the identification of 145,974 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNPs) loci. A subset of 138 SNPs was then used to analyze the genetic relationships between 119 cultivars making up the Israeli germplasm collection. The various cultivars did not cluster according to their geographical origin but rather showed a high correlation to their function (oil, table or dual-purpose).

Figure 4 - Cluster analysis of 119 olive cultivars against 138 SNPs.
A dendogram was constructed based on genetic distance estimated as one minus the proportion of shared alleles and neighbor-joining tree, based on maximum likelihood (ML). Sub-clusters are enlarged with a vertical line next to their names. The color of the vertical line is dark green for oil cultivars, green for oil + dual purpose cultivars and light green for table + dual purpose cultivars. A sub-cluster of 5 cultivars with a common origin is also enlarged.

We are also part of the True Healthy Olive Cultivars (THOC) project, whose objective is to provide olive germplasm banks from the IOC network authentic and free starting material of the pathogens responsible for olive tree tuberculosis (Pseudomonas savastanoi), verticillosis (Verticillium dahliae), sudden death syndrome (Xylella fastidiosa), viral diseases ArMV, CMV, CLRV, SLRV and the nematodes Meloidogyne Spp. and Xiphinema, from the World Bank of Germplasm of Oliva de Córdoba (BMGO CAP-UCO-IFAPA).

The plant material of the main varieties traded internationally has been authenticated, cleaned, multiplied and made available to the member countries

https://www.liferesilience.eu/ioc-and-uco-sign-an-agreement-to-launch-the-thoc-project/

We are in the process of bringing this plant material to our collection

מעבדת זית

The Israeli olive germplasm collection

The list of cultivars in the Israeli olive germplasm collection, including the origin and use