‘Sikitita’ is a new olive cultivar developed in Spain by crossing the cultivars ‘Picual’ and ‘Arbequina’. The
phenolic fraction of olive leaves (Olea europaea L.), is purported to have good anti-oxidative properties
which help to prevent several health problems. To our knowledge, no studies are available on the
phenolic fraction of ‘Sikitita’ olive leaves or any other new cultivar developed from breeding. Thus, the
identification and quantification of the phenolic fraction of ‘Sikitita’ olive leaves by HPLC-DAD-MS were
studied and compared with those of its parent cultivars. The three cultivars were grown under the same
agronomic and environmental conditions in the same orchard. The quantification was performed using
HPLC-DAD, whereas qualitative data were acquired using HPLC-MS. It was thus possible to identify 30
different compounds, two of which have been tentatively characterized for the first time in olive leaves of
Spanish cultivars. Significant differences between cultivars were observed for almost all the compounds.
Results for ‘Sikitita’ olive leaves presented a higher degree of similarity with respect to ‘Picual’ than to
‘Arbequina’. Further work will monitor the time course of phenolic compounds over the growth period.