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<pre>It is sad to hear that any olive variety is in trouble. The Volcani
Institute and Professor Lavee that developed Barnea are internationally
recognised for their work in horticulture and especially the olive.

Trials in Israel indicated the Barnea variety was a an early producer
and having tasted the oil myself I would agree that its taste is not
distinctive. However this is an indication of how varieties perform (or
not perform) in different regions and in the inexperienced hands. Many
growers extol the virtue of their olive trees, particularly the vigour
under intensive irrigation and fertigation. How good the olive trees
perform has to be measured on the quality and quantity of fruit.

If the Barnea variety is not meeting its expectations in Australia then
controlled trials need to be undertaken through the NOVA trials so that
growers do not waste time and money.

In the case of removing 3000 trees after 3 years. I estimate the
establishment, maintainance and removal of those trees at AUS$50/tree
minimum is Aus$150000. Adding 3 years of lost production (ie starting
from scratch)
is 3years x 50kg olives/tree x 3000trees = 450tonnes of olives. This
would yield 90 tonnes of olive oil. This is about 100000 litres which
has a minimum farmgate value ($5/litre) of about AUS$500000.

If my maths are correct then this exercise would cost AUS $650000.

To date it has been interesting to see an olive variety (possibly
Frantoio group) derived from New Norcia in Western Australia has shown
to be a consistent producer and has taken of several national olive oil
prizes.

My advice to growers is that until there is more data which we are
expecting from the NOVA trials, then stick to the well known
international varieties. I am undertaking limited trials in Western
Australia that may yield some useful results to growers. Most of the
worlds olive oil is produced and consumed in the Mediterranean!
Therefore varieties such as picual, nevadillo, arbequena, frantoio,
leccino, pendolino, coratina, conservolea and koroneiki are important
oil varieties. Important table olive varieties are manzanillo,
hojiblanca, sevillano, kalamata. From my experience all good quality
fruit grown for table olives is processed for that purpose. Reject fruit
is then crushed hence the dual purpose olive such as manzanillo and
kalamata.

Stan Kailis
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