Analysis of the oil content and fatty acid composition of 94 cultivars of olive

Olive oil contains a high percentage of unsaturated fatty acids, that is why it is considered to have a big nutitional interest. In litterature, the selection of olive varieties is taken on the basis of their argonomic characters. In the present work, our objective is to characterize the nutritional quality of 94 cultivars (Core Collection) in term of the oil content and the fatty acids composition in the fruits and the correlation with the genetic profile of core collection cultivars, divided into their genetic structre groups (East, Center and West. The statistical analysis showed significant effect of cultivar and interaction cultivar x replicates for the traits ; oil content, unSATFA/SFA ratio, palmitic, oleic and linoleic acids percentage. Then there is only genetic effect for the palmitic and stearic acids percentage. Indeed, regarding to the admixed cultivars from core collection, the oil content is high in Eastern group followed by Western and Centeral groups. Whereas, the unSATFA/SFA ratio is high in Western group followed by Eastern and then Central. Therefore, the cultivars which have high linoleic acid content are from East, followed by the Centeral and the Western groups. The Principal Components Analysis (PCA) carried out on data summarizes 69,30% of the general information on the first two dimensions. As a result, three groups were distinguished : the first is characterized by high values of oleic acid percentage and unSATFA/SFA ratio as well as low palmitic acid percentage. The second contains individuals with intermediate values and last group gave high palmitic acid, low oleic acid and unSATFA/SFA ratio. This investigation will be in process for two more years in order to estimate the year effect and to quantify the genetic effect via the heritability estimation