Some morphological, anatomical, physiological responses of different olive cultivars to high temperatures and drought stress

The aim of this work is to find relationships between morphology and physiology in three different olive cultivars: Biancolilla, Cerasuola and Nocellara del Belice, when plants were subjected to high temperature and drought. These cultivars are estensively used in Sicily for productive purposes. The results about ultrastructural and physiological studies on shoot growth, leaf anatomy, chloroplast ultrastructure and oxygen production, indicate that Biancolilla is the cultivar in which the studied traits showed fewer changes and can be considered to have the best tolerance to both high temperatures and water deficit. In the other hand, the morphological and physiological characteristics studied are more affected by thermal and drought stress in Nocellara del Belice than in the other two cultivars.