The present study was conducted during 2008 and 2009 seasons on fifteen olive cultivars as a source of cuttings and planted in the experimental orchard of Horticultural Research Station, Seds, Beni- Suef Governorate, Egypt. The cultivars namely: Aggizi Aksi, Aggizi Shami, Arbequin, Coratina, Dolce Frantoio, Hamed, Kalamata, Koroneiki, Manzanillo, Maraki, Nabali Mohassan, Picual, Toffahi and Wardan. The cuttings were planted under a white plastic tunnel inside a shaded net house. This study included the two experiments:
Experiment (1): The aim of this experiment was to study rooting ability parameters of the fifteen olive cultivars under study, the results showed that, cuttings of Manzanillo, Picual, Aggizi Shami, Aggizi Aksi, Koroneiki and Coratina gave the highest values of most of the studied rooting parameters as, rooting percentage, number of roots and total roots length.
Experiment (2): The main objective was to study the effect of time of cutting preparation dates (February, May, August and November) of three olive cultivars (Coratina, Kalamata and Manzanillo) as well as interaction effect of their combinations on rooting ability parameters. Cuttings of Manzanillo cv. had good rooting characters 66.25 & 66.14 followed by Coratina cv. 62.39 & 59.91 then Kalamata cv. 12.52 & 10.81 during 2008 & 2009 seasons. August and November were considered the best date of cutting preparation under the same conditions of this study. Cuttings of Manzanillo prepared at August gave the highest rooting percent .The highest survival percentage after two months from transplanting was recorded from cuttings prepared and planted at August and November in both studied seasons.
As a conclusion we can say that rooting of some olive cuttings under shaded Polyethylene tunnel consider the best method compared with the other methods because it do not need a very expensive equipments.