An interdisciplinary research group in Aragón has identified 30 new olive varieties among the autonomous community’s centenarian trees.
The five groups participating in the project, coordinated by Olivos de Aragón, identified 96 varieties in the west of the autonomous community, which includes the Bajo Aragón Protected Designation of Origin region.
The researchers then compared DNA markers and morphological characterizations against more than 1,200 varieties in the Institute of Agricultural and Fisheries Research and Training’s (Ifapa) World Olive Germplasm Bank in Córdoba.
Based on these comparisons, the researchers identified 30 olive varieties that did not match the bank’s genetic material.
“We participated in the project because the area ofthe Bajo Aragón PDO was the least studied in terms of knowing what local varieties could be found,” said Joaquín Lorenzo, the project’s coordinator.
The regional government of Aragón stipulates that extra virgin olive oil must be made “exclusively from the Empeltre, Arbequina and Royal olives, of which Empeltre accounts for a minimum proportion of 80 percent” to receive the Bajo Aragón PDO.
“Here, most of the olive groves are Empeltre,” Lorenzo said. “Therefore,investigating these isolated or small olive groves had never been a concern.”
According to Lorenzo, about 95 percent of the olive groves in the region are comprised of Empeltre olive trees. These trees came to dominate the landscape after a severe frost in 1956, which damaged many endemic and older olive trees.
While anecdotal evidence of unique olive varieties had long existed among local growers, a scientific effort to catalog all the olive varieties was not undertaken until now.
“Now that we know they are all different varieties, we will be able to research them further,” Lorenzo said.
Along with research organizations, Viveros Mariano Soria, a nursery, and Aceites Lis, a mill, have joined the project to help graft the new olive tree varieties and produce extra virgin olive oil from existing trees of the newly identified varieties that yield olives each season. More