Molecular characterization of ancient olive genotypes from Hatay Province in Turkey

Abstract

Turkey’s average share of world olive production is between 7% and 10% and the country is the fourth biggest table olive and olive oil producer in the world. More than fifty olive cultivars have been commercialized in Turkey and there are numerous olive genotypes in different olive-growing regions in Turkey that differ from each other in terms of leaf, flower, and fruit characteristics. The aim of the present study was to identify the 40 most widely grown olive genotypes in Hatay Province in Turkey using microsatellite or simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. Ten SSR loci were selected and used to identify olive genotypes/cultivars. The number of alleles per locus was found to be between 4 (UDO4 and DCA13) and 16 (DCA9), indicating high polymorphism among olive germplasms. We did not determine identical cultivars in SSR analysis. Samandag2 and Dörtyol7 (0.85), Samandag7 and Saurani (0.75), Payas kalesi and Sarı ulak (0.75), and Yayladag4 and Samandag3 (0.70) genotype pairs showed higher similarity while Yayladag1 and Samandag8 (0.15), Reyhanlı1 and Yayladag6 (0.15), and Samandag8 and Hassa5 (0.15) were found to be the most genetically divergent genotypes.