This article Publico reports an interesting (and sadly rare) episode of a Portuguese businessman wh

This article Publico reports an interesting (and sadly rare) episode of a Portuguese businessman who knew how to invest in scientific research. And resulted in an innovative method for dating ancient olive trees.
The olive tree (Olea europaea L.) was part of the original package of species included in the initial horticulture pr atica of humanity in the Middle East. The other species included in this first flush of domestication of trees or garden plants were the fig, date palm and the vine (Zohary and Hopf, 2000). The fruit (olive) keeps well and can be eaten all year, traditionally with bread. The oil was used as food, ointment and as a base for perfumes and as a source of illumination lamps. Its easy maintenance for long periods of time allowed for co Mercian long distance.
The olive tree is a fruit tree extremely tough and well adapted to the Mediterranean climate. T al so that its pressure disease and considered as an indication of the limits of the Mediterranean Biome. Fruiting starts about 5 years after planting, and if properly treated an olive tree can produce fruit for centuries bolton manitoba spa and reach older than 1500 years. This ancient source of admiration and veneration popular in many locations.
Several lines of evidence suggest that the olive tree (O. europea var. Europaea) bolton manitoba spa was domesticated from the olive-brava (O. europea var. Sylvestris or O. europaea subsp. Oleaster), sometimes referred to generically as 'wild olive'. These two sub-species are the only native of the Mediterranean. There are other sub-species Olea complex that despite geographical distribution away from the Mediterranean s will inter-fertile with olive and may have contributed to the genetic diversity of cultivated tree: 1) O. europaea subsp. maroccana (southern Morocco), 2) O. europaea bolton manitoba spa subsp. laperrinei (in the mountains of the Sahara), 3) O. europaea subsp. cerasiformis (present only in Madeira) 4) O. europaea subsp. guanchica (Canary Islands) and 5) O. europaea subsp. cuspidata (with a wider dsitribuição Africa to China through the Middle East) (Besnard and such. 2002).
The olive-mad reproduces by outcrossing (self-inco bolton manitoba spa mpatibilidade) and seed and their fruits bolton manitoba spa are generally smaller than the olive. Already domesticated olive reproduces bolton manitoba spa only by vegetative propagation can revert to the wild if propagated by seed (Zohary bolton manitoba spa and Hopf, 2000). This has not prevented the emergence of genetic diversity observed in hundreds of varieties of olive existing and showing variation in shape, size and oil content of the olive. They have appeared through spontaneous crossings with olive-angry or induced bolton manitoba spa in "field trials" bolton manitoba spa followed by vegetative propagation of varieties with desired characteristics (Bertin et al. 2001).
The first traces arqueobotânicos olive back to Chalcolithic sites in Israel and Jordan (curiously outside the current limit of presence of olive-mad), but only in the Bronze Age this species appears in Crete and Greece (Zohary and Hopf, 2000) . The cultivation of olive and olive oil production have been introduced only in the Iberian bolton manitoba spa Peninsula in the 1st millennium BCE, probably by the Phoenicians (Sallares, 2007). The earliest traces of olive and olive oil production bolton manitoba spa in the Iberian Peninsula arise at levels Phoenicians Cerro de Villar, Malaga, and Castillo de Doña Blanca, near Cadiz (boxwood, bolton manitoba spa 2008).
Biodiversity studies using ancient DNA (Elbaum et al 2006), morphology (Terral et al. 2004), variation in genetic markers in the nuclear genome bolton manitoba spa (Belaj et al. 2002) and the chloroplast (Besnard et al. 2002) seem to point differences among the olive trees in the western bolton manitoba spa Mediterranean and the central and eastern Mediterranean. It is uncertain bolton manitoba spa whether this is due to a differential input of the species or the fact that the Iberian peninsula and the Balkans have served as refuges to olive-angry during the last glaciation. The olive-brave these two regions are therefore genetically bolton manitoba spa distinct due to geographical isolation and the cross with the cultivated olive trees may have given rise to genetically different olive.
The olive tree has been present since early in the popular culture of the entire Mediterranean basin as evident in biblical stories (the dove of peace carried in the beak an olive branch, the Garden of Olives where Jesus spends the last night, etc.) and Greek legends -Roman (usually associated with Athena / Minerva and knowledge of agriculture). Arabs inherited the term "oil" (al-zait) and the olive and its product is frequent presence in popular songs ("O Oliveira da Serra"), the place names (parish of Groves, Lisbon), in antroponímia (family "Oliveira" bolton manitoba spa ) and adages bolton manitoba spa ("Olive oil, wine and friend, the better the