To assess the genetic diversity in Moroccan cultivated olive, Olea europaea L. subsp. europaea, we performed molecular analysis of olive trees sampled in four geographic zones representing all areas of traditional olive culture. The analysis of 215 trees using 15 simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci revealed 105 alleles distributed among 60 SSR profiles. The analysis of chloroplast deoxyribonucleic acid polymorphism for these 60 olive genotypes allowed to identify four chlorotypes: 42 CE1, one CE2, nine COM1 and eight CCK. Among the 60 SSR profiles, 52 corresponded to cultivated olive trees for which neither denomination nor characterisation is available. These local olive genotypes displayed a spatial genetic structuring over the four Moroccan geographic zones (northwest, north centre, Atlas and southwest), as pairwise Fst values ranged from 0.0394 to 0.1383 and varied according to geographic distance. As single alleles detected in local olive were also observed in Moroccan oleaster populations, results suggest that plant material was mainly selected from indigenous populations. The assumption that Picholine marocaine cultivar is a multi-clonal cultivar was not supported by our data because we found a single genotype for 112 olive trees representing 31 to 93% of the olives sampled locally in the 14 different areas. Picholine marocaine and the few other named cultivars do not seem to belong to the same gene pools as the unnamed genotypes cultivated only locally. The situation is paradoxical: a substantial genetic diversity in Moroccan olive germplasm, probably resulting from much local domestication, but a single cultivar is predominant.

With the progresses of oilseed industry, an important interest is currently being focused on exploiting novel and underutilized sources for vegetable oils. Being so far the less studied part in fig fruits, seeds separated from four fig cultivars were assessed for their oil content, fatty acids identification, total phenolics and invitro antioxidant analysis. A one-way Anova yielded statistically significant differences for all parameters, with the exception of pentadecylic, margaric and arachidic acids besides the total saturated fatty acids. Fig seeds presented a yellow colored oil, of which the content ranged from 21.54 ± 1.71 to 28.52 ± 0.62%. Gas liquid chromatography analysis of the seed oil showed high percentages of linolenic acid in the four cultivars ranging from 38.43 ± 0.01 to 43.57 ± 0.04, followed by linoleic acid (28.9 ± 0.06–34.5 ± 0.04%). Palmitic acid and stearic acid were the dominating saturated fatty acids in all samples, where the amounts were in the range from 8.54 ± 0.04 to 9.05 ± 0.06% and from 2.59 ± 0.13 to 3.3% respectively. The efficiency of the desaturation from oleic acid to linoleic acid estimated within desaturation pathway, was higher among all cultivars than the efficiency of the desaturation from linoleic acid to linolenic acid. This explains the large increase of 18:3 concentration in all samples. The local cultivar ‘C11A21’ exhibited the highest total unsaturated fatty acids and the lowest level of saturated fatty acids, while the cultivar ‘White Adriatic’ combined the most relevant phenolics content, antioxidant activity and half maximum inhibitory concentration. All sampled oil possessed an important phenolics content that displayed variable levels of antioxidant activity. The objective of this study is to bring new data on the biochemical attributes of fig seeds as a new source oil that can be used for nutritional, pharmaceutical and cosmetic purposes.

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The Menara gardens in Marrakech (Morocco), established in the 12th century, comprise more than 2000 olive trees. To assess the genetic diversity within these gardens, we performed SSR analysis of 128 randomly sampled olive trees. Using 15 SSR loci which revealed 70 alleles, we identified 16 distinct genotypes. The analysis of chloroplast DNA polymorphism allowed to identify 2 chlorotypes: COM1 for 2 genotypes and CE1 for all others. Among the 128 trees analysed, Picholine marocaine was the prevalent cultivar represented by 100 trees (78%), the 28 remaining trees being classified into 15 distinct genotypes. However, four genotypes were closely related to Picholine marocaine from which they probably derived through somatic mutations. The genotypic and genetic diversity observed in Menara gardens compared with the genotype diversity from different areas (North and Atlas); these facts support the hypothesis that these gardens have been planted with trees probably originating from different areas of Morocco. Our results point out an important concept for ex situ conservation: the assumption that local Moroccan olive germplasm was empirically, but not purposively, conserved already in Menara gardens.