The olive genetic patrimony

Juan M. Caballero

Ex-Chief Olive Growing Department, IFAPA, Centro Alameda del Obispo, Córdoba

juam.caballero@yahoo.com

Germplasm banks are basic tools for selecting and breeding purposes because their objectives are to save and characterize genetic resources, accumulated by centuries of selection, cultivation, breeding and expansion. Olive genetic erosion mainly arises from most of the world olive acreage being in marginal lands, which often leads to up-rooting orchards in different areas. The establishment of the Olive World Germplasm Bank (OWGB) of Córdoba (Centro Alameda del Obispo, IFAPA) in 1970 was the first important international attempt to conserve and study the world olive cultivated biodiversity under field conditions. This bank includes most of the total number of cultivated varieties surveyed in Spain and also the main ones from almost all the olive-growing countries. Its collection includes 900 accessions of 25 countries. Besides that, its main feature is the secondary characterization work being developed since the beginning by several research groups, mainly from IFAPA and Córdoba University.