Flowering of Olive (Olea europaea L.) Trees and Possibility for Growing in Thailand

Abstract

Flower bud induction and differentiation in the olive (Olea europaea L.) is a long lasting process, influenced by 2 main factors namely environmental effects (temperature and light), nutrition and growth regulators to the plant. A two-step induction and differentiation hypothesis eventually lead to the onset of flower bud differentiation, which appears to be started at the end of autumn and bud break in spring. For growing love in Thailand, only cv. ‘Arbequina’ showed the best trend because high growth rate and flowing were obtained in many parts of the country. However, the main problem was the only ‘parthenocarpic fruits’ occurred from their self-sterile. To solve this problem, three main strategies have been suggested as following: collection of the selected thermal adaptive or self-fertile cultivars and the selected growing sites using thermal and flowering date prediction models and suitable plant growth regulators (PGR) application. Therefore, growing olive trees in Thailand either as a fruits or oil would have high possibility to success for hygienic purpose.