Classification of three Turkish olive cultivars from Aegean region based on their fatty acid composition

In this study, fatty acid compositions of three olive cultivars oils (Ayvalik, Memecik, and Erkence) grown in Aegean region, the major olive production zone of Turkey, were classified by chemometric methods: principal component analysis and discriminant analysis (DA). A total of 187 oil samples were examined over the course of two harvest years (2001–2002 and 2002–2003). The samples were divided into three subgroups according to olive-growing zones: North Aegean (Ayvalik cultivar), South Aegean (Memecik), and İzmir Peninsula (Erkence cultivar). Consistent with discriminant analysis, the predicted groupings in terms of the two harvest years were correctly separated as 98.50 and 96.60%, respectively. In addition to oleic, linoleic, linolenic, margoleic, palmitic/linoleic and linoleic/linolenic were determined to be the best describing components for the oil samples.