Xenia effects on oil content and fatty acid and tocopherol concentrations in autogamous almond cultivars.

The increasing utilization of self-compatible almond cultivars in solid plantings of a single genotype has raised the question of the effect of the pollen source on the kernel quality of these new autogamous cultivars. Thus, the effect of two different pollen sources, in addition to their own pollen, on the oil content and fatty acid and tocopherol concentrations was studied in four autogamous almond genotypes. The oil content was not affected by the pollination treatment, but self-pollination resulted in significantly higher values for oleic acid. For the tocopherol homologues, the alpha-tocopherol content of the self-pollinated kernels was intermediate between those obtained after cross-pollination with the two foreign pollens, but the self-pollinated kernels had higher values of delta-tocopherol than the cross-pollinated kernels. Thus, the effect of the pollen source was shown to have a clear effect on the fatty acid composition but not on the oil or tocopherol contents of the almond kernels, with an increased quality of the kernels produced after self-pollination because of a higher oleic/linoleic acid ratio.