The Use of Microsatellite Markers for Germplasm Management in Spanish and Italian Olive Collections

Olive is a Mediterranean fruit species that is cultivated mainly for oil but also for canned fruits. In addition to the international olive germplasm collection at Cordoba (Spain) preserving major olive cultivars in the world, several collections exist in other Mediterranean countries. In particular, the olive germplasm collection located in the "CRA-Olive growing and oil industry research centre" (CRA-OLI, Italy) contains the major part of the Italian olive germplasm. The goal of such collections is to safeguard all cultivars, and particularly the minor ones, to avoid a loss in genetic diversity and to offer an interesting genetic basis for breeding programs. We used molecular markers to characterize all accessions and to study genetic relationships between cultivars. More than 100 olive accessions were genotyped using 12 SSR markers. This study allowed us to construct a molecular data-base for the reference collection and to analyze genetic diversity for further prospecting, and to introducing new olive accessions.