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Functional Plant Biology Functional Plant Biology Society
Plant function and evolutionary biology
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Tissue size and cell number in the olive (Olea europaea) ovary determine tissue growth and partitioning in the fruit

Adolfo Rosati A C , Silvia Caporali A , Sofiene B. M. Hammami B , Inmaculada Moreno-Alías B , Andrea Paoletti A and Hava F. Rapoport B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A CRA–OLI, via Nursina 2, 06049 Spoleto (PG) Italy.

B Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible, CSIC, PO Box 4084, 14 080 Cordoba, Spain.

C Corresponding author. Email: adolfo.rosati@entecra.it

Functional Plant Biology 39(7) 580-587 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP12114
Submitted: 13 April 2012  Accepted: 3 June 2012   Published: 9 July 2012

Abstract

The relationship between tissue size and cell number in the ovary and tissue size in the fruit, was studied in eight olive (Olea europaea L.) cultivars with different fruit and ovary size. All tissues in the ovary increased in size with increasing ovary size. Tissue size in the fruits correlated with tissue size in the ovary for both mesocarp and endocarp, but with different correlations: the mesocarp grew about twice as much per unit of initial volume in the ovary. Tissue size in the fruit also correlated with tissue cell number in the ovary. In this case, a single regression fitted all data pooled for both endocarp and mesocarp, implying that a similar tissue mass was obtained in the fruit per initial cell in the ovary, independent of tissues and cultivars. Tissue relative growth from bloom to harvest (i.e. the ratio between final and initial tissue size) differed among cultivars and tissues, but correlated with tissue cell size at bloom, across cultivars and tissues. These results suggest that in olive, tissue growth and partitioning in the fruit is largely determined by the characteristics of the ovary tissues at bloom, providing important information for plant breeding and crop management.

Additional keywords: cultivar, division, endocarp, expansion, locule, mesocarp.


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