Analysis of micronutrients in olive pollen

Abstract

The micronutrient content [iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), boron (B)] of olive (Olea europaea L.) pollen grains from different sites is studied by means of spectrophotometry and atomic absorption techniques. We compared pollen samples collected from organic olive crops (B1, B2, and B3), cultivated without the use of mineral‐based fertilizers, phytosanitary products or herbicides with samples obtained from crops which had undergone extensive chemical treatment (T1, T2, T3, and T4). The micronutrients detected in the pollen grains analyzed show that large quantities of such chemical products are absorbed by the plant. The importance of Fe should be stressed, since in one of the chemically‐treated samples (T3) levels of 1,484 μg/g dry weight were found to have been incorporated into the structure, while in the control samples the equivalent concentrations ranged between 96 and 450 μg/g dry weight. Similarly, Cu was found to have been easily assimilated by populations which had received extensive Cu‐based foliar treatments.