فعالية التلقيح المفتوح في تحسين نسبة العقد لبعض اصناف الزيتون المزروعة تحت ظروف الساحل السوري

The research was conducted to investigate the efficiency of open pollination in improving fruit set of five olive cultivars (Khodairi, Picholine Languedoc, Sourani Abo-shauke, Leccino and Frantoio), and the importance of planting pollinator cultivars in mono-cultivar olive orchards. The study was carried out at Bouqa/Latakia in the growing season of 2013. The results showed the superiority in the initial and final fruit set obtained by open-pollination over that obtained by self-pollination. The correlation between the flower sex and the initial fruit set was higher in the case of self-pollination, which shows the role of pollinator cultivar in determining the fruit set. The drop Ratio which resulted from self-pollination was superior to that resulted from open-pollination in Picholine languedoc and Khodairi. Also the small (unfertilized) fruit ratio (found only in Khodairi and Frantoio) was higher in the case of self-pollination compared to open pollination. Open-pollination showed higher final efficiency in increasing production; 11 times higher in Picholine languedoc, and 5 times higher in Khodairi and Sourani Abo-Shauke compared to self-pollination. Our results show the importance of planting more than one cultivar in olive orchards to obtain adequate pollination and better productivity. This is because open-pollination showed significant efficiency in improving the fruit set of the studied cultivars.