Chemical Composition and Water Permeability of Fruit and Leaf Cuticles of Olea europaea L.

The plant cuticle, protecting against uncontrolled water loss, covers olive ( Olea europaea ) fruits and leaves. The present study describes the organ-specific chemical composition of the cuticular waxes and the cutin and compares three developmental stages of fruits (green, turning, and black) with the leaf surface. Numerous organ-specific differences, such as the total coverage of cutin monomeric components (1034.4 μg cm –2 and 630.5 μg cm –2 ) and the cuticular waxes (201.6 μg cm –2 and 320.4 μg cm –2 ) among all three fruit stages and leaves, respectively, were detected. Water permeability as the main cuticular function was 5-fold lower in adaxial leaf cuticles (2.1 × 10 –5 m s –1 ) in comparison to all three fruit stages (9.5 × 10 –5 m s –1 ). The three fruit developmental stages have the same cuticular water permeability. It is hypothesized that a higher weighted average chain length of the acyclic cuticular components leads to a considerably lower permeability of the leaf as compared to the fruit cuticle.