###### Abstract
Indeed, the use of local cultivars in modern olive orchards with high-tech farming is important to preserve the production of high-quality olive oil with unique color, flavors, and chemical composition as well as agro-biodiversity. Using specific low-vigor cultivars, increasing planting densities, adopting planar-hedgerow tree forms, limiting water and nutrient supplies, and using cover crops, which generally restrict tree vegetative growth, are all useful tools to reduce olive tree size [15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22] and favor the development of pedestrian growing systems. Cultivar choice plays a key role in pedestrian olive orchards. While cultivars with high vigor, upright growth, and with high yield have been successfully used in traditional planting systems, low-vigor, early fruiting, highly productive local genotypes fit well the high-density (HD, 800-1000 trees/ha) intensive planting systems [13; 23; 24]. In the dry and sloping areas of Mediterranean regions, the combination of low-vigor local genotypes and medium- to high-density (400-1000 trees/ha) pedestrian olive systems may represent a viable and sustainable option for three main reasons: (1) unlike the SHD systems, where only a few cultivars, currently all susceptible to dangerous diseases [25], such as _Xylella fustidiosa pauca_, are widely used, minor and local genotypes may adapt well to pedestrian olive orchards, maintaining high levels of olive genetic diversity and improving environmental sustainability of olive growing; (2) low-vigor cultivars with thin, flexible branches are suited also to continuous harvest with straddle machines and mechanical pruning, decreasing production costs; and (3) local cultivars and minor genotypes are often recognized and still grown for their resilience to biotic and abiotic stressors and for high-quality olive oils with unique color, flavor, phenol and fatty acid composition, increasing nutritional value and marketing opportunities of the final product. Olive oils of many Sicilian cultivars have revealed high amounts of fatty acids, such as oleic, linoleic, and palmitic acids. For example, olive oils from 'Cerasuola' presented particularly healthy chemical profiles with high content of oleic acid and phenols [26] as well as a rich aroma associated to positive sensory attributes [27]. Minor and neglected Sicilian cultivars also showed higher content in tocopherols, total phenols, and polar phenols compared with main cultivars [28]. Overall, the exploitation of biodiversity is an effective tool to increase olive production sustainability. The study of minor and neglected genotypes from the Mediterranean area represents one of the most original and effective approaches oriented to identify cultivars with high degree of adaptability to climate change [29] and resistance to epidemic diseases. Concurrently, the identification of those cultivars provides the opportunity to produce high-quality virgin olive oil with unique flavors and chemical composition using new planting systems [30]. In this context, a multi-year study carried out on some minor Sicilian varieties in comparison with the most representative cultivar in the area highlighted the interest in the minor cultivars Calatina and Abunara. The aim of the present study was to evaluate growth, productivity, and olive oil quality of three Sicilian cultivars with different vigor/growth habits grown in four different planting systems, each as a combination of a specific training form and planting density, and, consequently, a mechanical harvest system. Three of the systems in trial represent different possibilities of HD pedestrian orchards, and the fourth one is a medium-density system trained to poly-conic vase and taken as a reference intensive system. The results will provide useful insight on the opportunity to establish pedestrian olive orchards to increase olive production efficiency and sustainability in those areas and conditions where SHD systems may not be economically and/or environmentally viable.