Morphological limitations in floral development among olive tree cultivars

Trabajo presentado en el XXVIII International Horticultural Congress on Science and Horticulture for People (IHC2010): International Symposium on Plant Physiology from Cell to Fruit Production System, celebrado en Lisboa (Portugal) del 22 al 27 de agosto de 2010.Although the olive tree flowers abundantly, only a very small proportion of those flowers eventually set fruit. It appears that high flower production is a strategy of this species in order to overcome limitations to pollination and fruit set and assure reproductive success. Those limitations include developmental problems or anomalies in floral structure at different levels of organization, specifically 1) the formation of staminate flowers due to pistil abortion and 2) incomplete ovule development. We determined the incidence of pistil abortion and incomplete ovule development in 6 Spanish olive cultivars in three different years, in order to assess the relative influence of genetic and environmental factors and to evaluate the possible interactions between the two different levels of morphological organization. Inflorescences were obtained from adult trees in the World Olive Germplasm Bank of the Junta de Andalucía IFAPA station in Cordoba, Spain, and were processed using standard histological procedures. The results support a strong influence of both genetic and environmental factors, yet independence in pistil and ovule develop-mental controls.Peer reviewe