Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

THE COMPARISON OF SOME OLIVE CULTIVARS AND GENOTYPES FOR OIL QUANTITY AND QUALITY IN NORTHERN IRAN

Esmaeil Seifi, Arezoo Jalali, Somayyeh Ebrahimnia, Hosein Fereidooni and Sadegh Atashi

Abstract

In this study, some olive cultivars and genotypes of two collections (Ganareh and Hashemabad) located in Northern Iran were studied in terms of quantity and quality of the oil. The results showed that H2 (62.0%), Shiraz 2 (56.6%) and Shiraz 1 (53.9%) had the highest percentages of oil in dry ma ter. H2 also had highest percentages of oil in fresh matter (24.4%). According to the percentage of the oil, Shiraz 2, Shiraz 1, Manzanilla, K12, H2 and I13 were selected for studying the quality of the oil. Shiraz 1 and H2 had the highest amount of peroxide value; while, Shiraz 2 and I13 had the lowest peroxide values. Shiraz 1 showed the highest amount of total chlorophylls and carotenoids and Shiraz 2 had the highest indexes of spectrometry K232 and K270. The most important unsaturated fatty acid in olive oil is oleic acid, which was the lowest in K12 and the highest in Shiraz 2. On the other hand, the most important saturated fatty acid in olive oil is palmitic acid which was the lowest in Shiraz 2 and the highest in K12. Most of the recorded traits were in standard limit values of International Olive Oil Council. According to the results, Shiraz 1, Shiraz 2 and H2 can be selected as superior cultivars.