THE GROWTH PATTERN AND OIL ACCUMULATION IN FRUIT TISSUES OF OLIVE CULTIVAR KRONEIKI

摘要

The olive fruit consists of two main tissues: flesh or mesocarp and stone. The stone itself contain the woody endocarp and seed. This study is aimed to investigate the effect of fruit growing stages on morphological characteristics and oil accumulation in different fruit tissues of olive cultivar Koroneiki. The fruits were harvested in six ripening stages from 6 July to 14 December and the quantitative traits and the percentage of oil were recorded. The results showed that there were some significantdifferences among the growing steps in most of the traits including fruit, flesh, seed and embryo weight, the percentages of oil and also in the dimensions of most tissues. The fruit and flesh weight have increased in the first five growing steps, but they reached a stable weight on 2 November. The increase of seed and embryo weight was faster and became stable after 17 September. According to the results, the percentages of oil in dry and fresh matter showed an increase from 27 July till the last growing step. The fruit length was increased initially and then became stable until 14 December. The fruits were more elongated at the first steps than the last ones. The results of this study shoCved that in the first growing steps, the endocarp, and its inner tissues had beenreached their final sizes, while the fruits continued to grow probably as a result of mesocarp development.