Profiles of volatile compounds from nine new hybrids obtained by controlled crossings on olive Chemlali cultivar and Mediterranean varieties

Abstract

Virgin olive oil is a unique oil that can be consumed directly without any refining process. This particularity is due to the exceptional quality and flavour formed by the presence of more than 100 volatile compounds. Nine new hybrids obtained by controlled crossing of the Chemlali and seven ancient Mediterranean varieties cultivated in the same orchard under identical agronomic and pedoclimatic conditions were characterised by their main volatile compounds quantified by dynamic headspace-gas chromatography-MS. More than 40 volatile compounds from the main chemical groups, aldehydes, alcohols, ketones and esters, were identified by GC-MS and confirmed by their Linear Retention Index (LRI). Compounds produced from the lipoxygenase pathway were studied to determine the genetic potential and the influence on each crossing. Finally, Ward's method test and Pearson PCA analysis were used to check the ability of the volatiles to cluster the varietal virgin olive oils according to their genetics origin.

Keywords:

• olive oil
• crossing
• hybrid
• volatile compounds
• lipoxygenase

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from the ‘Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur de la Recherche Scientifique & de la Technologie’ UR03/ES-08. We would like to thank Mrs A. Yangui, H. Belguith and Dr A. Trigui from ‘Institut de l’Olivier de Sfax’ for their expert support.