Sources of verticillium wilt resistance in wild olive germplasm from the Mediterranean region

Fifty-seven wild olive accessions collected from the Mediterranean basin were screened under greenhouse conditions for their resistance to verticillium wilt. Plants were root-dip inoculated. One defoliating and one non-defoliating isolate of Verticillium dahliae, both obtained from diseased plants in southern Italy, were used. Plants of the highly susceptible cv. Cima di Mola, frequently used as a rootstock in Apulia, were also included in this test. Disease reactions were evaluated on the basis of external symptoms, vascular browning and by calculating areas under disease progress curves (audpc). On the basis of audpc values and external symptom severity, accessions were grouped into four phenotypic groups: highly resistant, moderately resistant, susceptible and highly susceptible. Three accessions showed high resistance to both V. dahliae pathotypes. Forty resistant plants were selected from accessions that had shown the highest levels of resistance. Clones were obtained from each of these plants by in vitro micropropagation for further testing. Ten clones showed the resistance characteristics of their original mother plants, while others suffered greater levels of disease severity than their mother plants. Several new olive rootstocks were identified that were highly resistant to verticillium wilt and could be included in breeding programmes for resistance of olive to V. dahliae. © 2008 The Authors.