Molecular characterization of some selected wild olive (Olea oleaster L.) ecotypes grown in Turkey

The wild olive subspecies oleaster called "Karadelice" in Turkish is a small tree or bush of rather irregular growth, with thorny branches and oppositely positioned oblong pointed leaves, dark grayish- green on the leaf surface and, in the early growth state, hoary on the lower surface with whitish scales. Generally, it is used as a dwarf rootstock; however, it has some grafting incompatibility with certain important olive cultivars. Some wild olive plants were selected from the village Kayadibi, 20 km distant from the city of zmir in Turkey. This region is a very unique place for this type of wild olive. These ecotypes were differentiated by molecular markers using RAPD-PCR. Since they can be used as a dwarf rootstock, the correlations with some important olive cultivars were analyzed. For that reason Ayvalok cv, which is the most important olive cultivar for olive oil production was used primarily. Since Ayvalok cv and KD-8 are 97% similar, it was expected that they may have grafting compability. In the second part of the study, the comparison were done with Memecik and Tavan Yurei cultivars which are important olive oil and table olive cultivars, respectively. Since Memecik and Tavan Yurei were 100% similar therefore, it was considered that they may have more grafting compability with oleasters KD-3 and KD-8. Both studies were carried out to find similarities in 9 olive oleasters growing at Kayadibi ofzmir province which are said to have confused and low level morphologic variations in their features.