Ghada Mostafa Kattmah
General Commission for Scientific Agricultural Research (GCSAR) , Administration of Horticulture
Faculty of Agriculture, Damascus University 

This research was conducted in collaboration between faculty of Agriculture/Damascus University and General Commission of Agricultural Scientific Research (GCSAR) during the period (2011 – 2016) in order to evaluate the growth vigor characteristics of selected types of wild olive in Syria and study the relationships among them by using Artificial Neural Network and DNA Fingerprinting Techniques, where 15 wild types have been selected during our field trips to the most important sites of wild olives in Syria (Rajo/ Aleppo province, Bsames/ Idleb province, and Mashta Al lakbeh, Hazour, Shkara Al khouri / Mosief region). The most important parameters related to growth vigor (tree height, trunk diameter, canopy volume, shoots length, average internodes length) of the selected wild trees have been studied in each of the original sites (in situ) after estimating their tree age, and in the genetic collection (ex situ) that established for planting the rooted cuttings of these wild types at Bouka research center in Latakia governorate,
where they had been compared with the cultivar “Al Safrawi” in both sites.
The chemical properties of the selected wild types were assessed via estimating the wet oil content in the fruits in addition to the essential fatty acids and the calculated oxidasability (COX), at the laboratory of olive oil that belongs to the Department of olive research in Idleb governorate, in order to evaluate their oil production quality and quantity.
The artificial neural network approach was used in order to study the diversity among selected wild olive types, by using Gray Level Co- occurrence Matrix (GLCM) technique depending on the leaves texture traits, Moreover, genetic fingerprinting was applied by using 16 primers of Inter Simple Sequence Repeats (ISSR) technique, in order to study the genetic relationship among the types that have shown weakness in the studied growth parameters and the two local cultivars “Al Safrawi” and “Doebli” grown in the orchards nearby to the natural olive forests in Mosief region.
The results of growth parameters of the selected wild types in both the original site (in situ) and in the collection (ex situ) showed that there were significant differences in growth vigor. On the other hand, W-H3 type gave a minimum growth parameters significantly, followed by the types W-H1 and W-H2, while the type W-Sh had the shortest trunk, Therefore, the studied wild types could be divided according to all growth characteristics to three groups: low vigor types (W-H1,W-H2, W-H3, W-Sh), moderate vigor types (W-M1, W-M2, W-M3), strong vigor types (W-H4, W-H5, W-H6, W-R1, W-R2, W-R3, W-B1, W-B2). However, all studied types were less growth vigor compared with Al Safrawi cultivar, where the average annual growth of the transplant height and trunk diameter in the studied wild types reached (33.77, 0.65 cm) respectively, while they were (51.00, 1.78 cm) respectively in Al Safrawi cultivar.
The studied wild types varied significantly in wet oil content/ fruits and the essential fatty acids percentages/oil and appeared clearly in the type W-H6 characterized by high oil yield (29.01%), with high percentage of Oleic acid (71.5%) and moderate values relatively of the oxidasability(1.71).
GLCM technique was able to discriminate the studied wild types accurately which gave high values of discrimination (72.34%), and settled in multiple groups. On the contrary, the type W-H3 which was marked as low vigor and high vigor one W-R1 settled in one group together in away from the rest of the studied wild types with high degree of discrimination between them (92.8%). ISSR technique demonstrated a high effectiveness in identifying the genetic relationship among the low vigor types and the two cultivars Al Safrawi and Doebli, as the percentage of polymorphic bands was 79.22%, and the percentage of Percent Disagreement Values (PDV) among the low vigor types reached 0.42 in average, the studied selected types distributed in two main clusters in the genetic tree, However, the type W-H2 was the closest to the cultivar ‘Doebli’ genetically, which the percentage of Percent Disagreement Values was (0.23), indicating that there is a genetic similarity presence among the wild and some cultivars of olive in Syria.
Key Words: Olive, Wild type, Cultivar, Vigor, Chemical Characteristics, Artificial Neural
Network, DNA Fingerprinting.