Growing Information

Pollination

Pollination of olive trees is now a regular subject of discussion. As the climatic conditions from year to year are out of our control as regards pollination, we will concentrate on the things over which we can influence. The single most important fact for a successful pollination is to plant several cultivars within a reasonably close proximity of each other. This will ensure that the needed pollen mix is available for a good fruit set. The second important fact is that the tree does not want stress, especially at flowering. Irrigation should be applied if moisture levels are low, the nutrient status should also be adequate. These points encourage the tree to produce perfect flowers for successful pollination.

Pruning

Leavalonical Pruning of Olives by Jeff Elliott

In the book pruning and training olives for the modern olive grove by Riccardo Gucci & Claudio Cantini I found exactly what at I was looking for on page 78" a large fruit size improves fruit yield .pruning mature trees of cultivars of oil production is relatively easy. The effect of pruning on oil characteristics is relatively minor, since oil Quality depends mainly on cultivars, the stage of harvesting ,time between harvest and processing,and the processing technology. Oils of excellent quality and taste can be obtained with many different pruning methods as long as harvesting and processing are preformed correctly.Even trees unpruned for ten years produce top Quality oils. Morrettie (1972) reported that the cumulated production of individual plants of "Frantoio and 'Maraiolo was about 150% higher in unpruned plants than pruned plants in 15 years of production."So what is the right way to prune?:Does it even matter if you don't? Lets face it even if it is hard to pick the fruit and you only get 80% you are still going to be better off than if you prune, and you don't even need to do anything.

The main considerations on how a tree will grow are the spacing nutrition and watering, which if you give the tree adequate amounts of each,it will use to best effect, without any help from pruning. In fact pruning will encourage a hedge type effect with more growth than is required so you can do more pruning to remove them, it will also stimulate the tree to grow , which is not flowering or fruiting and it is also cutting of fruiting wood all so you can get less olives. Sure it is different if we are growing for pickling where we need good quality olives, but how necessary is it for oil? I have been a nurseryman for 20 years, sure I know didly squat about olives, or do I? Is an olive a rhododendron or a Camellia in disguise and I do know how to keep them growing and to stop them growing, and I'm positive it is no different for olive's .

I've been helping Terry Bellamy to prune his olives we have had some good instruction from Sjef Llamas on vase pruning. I am relatively convinced of one thing and that is a meter of clear stem is probably a handy thing when the tree is a bit bigger, but that about all I'm convinced on. The more I read and look the more confused I get because the artistry of man (pruning) is not as clever as nature. There is nothing surer that good management of any business will generally make money, but I wonder if by reducing our crop by over 50% and paying to do it is good management.

The biggest thing I see and I see it time and time again is insufficient pollination,sure some of the self fertile varieties like korenikei and Picual produce lots of fruit early, but I've also got some two year old Barnea that refused to grow cause they have to much fruit on them. The reason they have all this fruit on them is they got mixed up with all the Manzanilla and got so well pollinated they are covered, what the poor pollination is causing is excessive growth because the plants should be fruiting and they are not, they are just putting their efforts into growing. I believe the cropping our olives is going to be one the best pruning technique we can do for our olive. The other is nutrition water and fertilizer makes the plant grow and keeping this in balance will let the plant grow to it's max ,and the plant will utilize the light to it's max without any help from the artistry of man.