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The increasing salinity of water and soil is one of the environmental factors that most threatens the sustainability of olive cultivation systems in the Mediterranean basin. The identification of plant material with high tolerance to this stress would be one of the ways to solve this challenge, but it is generally a slow and expensive process. The selection of the most reliably parameters involved in the response of the plant to salinity and that are easy to evaluate, could help to speed up the identification of the most tolerant genotypes. The objective of this study is to determine the most interesting morphological characters which could be used in future as early criteria in the selection process of olive tolerant genotypes. For that, young plants, three-month-old, were exposed to salinity (0, 4 and 8 g/L NaCl) during different periods of time (30, 50 and 70 days), and several morphological parameters were assessed. The obtained results showed that most of the parameters were affected by the concentration 8 g/L of NaCl after a treatment period of 50 days. The most affected parameters by this level of salinity were the plant height, the leaf number and the number of lateral shoots. The PCA analysis showed that the number of lateral shoots was poorly correlated with the other parameters, but the height and the leaf number were highly correlated with each other.

In terms of economic growth, health benefits, and culture, the olive oil industry is a critical sector for many countries. However, olive mill wastewater (OMWW) is one of the most polluting by-products of the manufacture of virgin olive oil. Several studies have reported that OMWW is a valuable resource of usable compounds for recovery and valorization. Because of its high content of phenolic compounds, it may serve a significant function in food because of the phenolics' strong antioxidant value. The current paper provides a survey of OMWW's phenolic recovery methods, focusing on their application as active constituents in food products. In addition, this contribution provides an overview of key research describing the potentialities of OMWW phenolics in food model systems. The Scopus, Web of Science, and Science Direct databases were chosen as our paper references. Based on the available studies, traditional techniques like solvent extraction, membranes, and, more recently, innovative technologies that promise minimum impact on these phytochemicals’ compounds are used to recover phenolics from OMWW. Various food products, such as vegetable oils, bakery products, milk beverages, and meat products, can be fortified. All of these applications are based on phenolics' antibacterial and antioxidant properties to minimize food matrix alteration and contamination.

The prevention of pathologies by diet management is an important public health challenge. The Mediterranean diet (Med diet) is considered one of the healthiest dietary patterns. According to current scientific research, this dietary pattern is linked to a decreased prevalence and incidence of various chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and age-related cognitive decline, as well as a lower overall mortality rate. In the Mediterranean diet, a high consumption of Virgin Olive Oil (VOO), fruit, nuts, vegetables, and grains is linked to a decreased incidence of many diseases and a longer life expectancy. According to numerous studies, VOO is the major food responsible for the health and nutritional benefits of the Mediterranean diet. VOO chemical compounds have been shown in vitro and in vivo investigations to have potentially favorable health benefits as a result of their biological activities. VOO composition has been linked to a variety of biological activities, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, anti-cancer, and antiviral characteristics. As a result, increasing attention is being paid to the composition of VOO and the identification of its biologically active components. Because of their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-thrombotic properties, phytochemicals, particularly phenolic compounds, have health-promoting effects, especially on cardiovascular and metabolic illnesses. These characteristics are even more important in light of the COVID-19 severe illness's heightened inflammatory and pro-thrombotic consequences. This overview collects and discusses the scattered data available in the literature concerning VOO compounds of biological interest and highlights their possible mechanisms of action and effects on human health. In vitro studies and in vivo intervention trials were selected and included in the study after conducting literature searches through "PubMed" and "Web of Science." In the majority of investigations, the ability of VOO phytochemicals to prevent the oxidation process at both the initiation and promotion/progression phases of several pathologies has been verified. The health benefits discussed in this article support the prospective health benefits acquired from VOO as a possible candidate in developing pharmaceutical preparations and nutraceutical or functional foods for a variety of pathological disorders. This idea could pave the way for future in vivo research and, eventually, clinical trials. In addition, greater research into the mechanisms of action and efficacy is needed to clarify the real biological potential of VOO phytochemicals on humans by performing intervention studies on populations at high disorder risk.

The date palm, a central plant in the fragile oasis ecosystem, is considered one of the fruit species most tolerant to salt stress. However, the tolerance mechanisms involved are yet to be addressed and their evaluation until now was mainly based on heterogenous plant material such as seedlings or limited to in vitro experiment conditions. For these reasons, we propose to deepen our knowledge of the morphological and physiological responses to salt stress using acclimated ex vitro plants resulting from the propagation of a single genotype. The plants were irrigated with 0, 150, 300, or 450 mM NaCl solutions for four months. Our results showed that the influence of water salinity on growth and ion-homeostasis regulation was very dependent on stress levels. The 150 mM NaCl concentration was found to improve dry biomass by about 35%, but at higher salt concentrations (300 and 450 mM) it decreased by 40–65%. The shoot:root dry mass ratio decreased significantly at the 150 mM NaCl water concentration and then increased with increasing water salt concentration. The leaf:root ratio for Na+ and Cl− decreased significantly with increasing water salinity up to a concentration of 300 mM NaCl, and then stabilized with similar values for 300 mM and 450 mM NaCl. In contrast to Na+ and Cl−, leaf K+ content was significantly higher in the leaf than in the root for all salt treatments. Unlike Na+ and K+, Cl− was expelled to the surface of leaves in response to increased water salinity. Overall, date palm plants appear to be more capable of excluding Cl− than Na+ and of changing biomass allocation according to salt-stress level, and their leaves and roots both appear to play an important role in this tolerance strategy.

In recent years, international trade in Maltese half-blood (Citrus sinensis) has increased. The rootstock's potential defines the fruit's characteristics in the eco-system where it is developed. As a result, in order to achieve the demands of the Maltese half-blood fruit market, it is critical to understand the effects of the rootstock and its role in fruit and juice quality. The Maltese half-blood was grafted onto four rootstocks and the fruit and juice quality parameters were evaluated. The obtained results revealed that rootstocks have a significant impact on the peel tickness of the fruits, as well as the acidity and total soluble solids of the juices. Indeed, the rootstocks significantly impacted the quality of the fruits and the juices in their environment. It was found that C35 citrange is a good rootstock for Maltese half-blood variety. Therefore, these on-site rootstock evaluation effects should assist local farmers in selecting the best rootstocks for their Maltese half-blood citrus cultivar based on the cultivation site's specific climatic and edaphic conditions.