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<pre>> Hello fellow members,
> My name is Scott Taylor i,m a small olive grower in the mildura
> region.I have 6 mth old M,s or should that be X,s. By chance i have
> stumbled onto the X debate which, with what i,ve been reading is
> felling more like a Trip! I aquired my tree,s from O.A.which with
> there assurance that this was the tree to plant for oil.As my tree,s
> are so young my first instinct is to pull up roots and run from this
> troublesome problem and re-plant with a well known specific oil
> tree.I will be doing some more research into this subject before i do
> this,but i,m interested to hear what other growers have decided to
> do.Any coments would be helpful.
> regards Scott Taylor

Scott,

I am one of the growers who experienced some problems with Ms this year.

My opinion is that the problems arose from the amount of rain we received in
December and January, which caused the Ms to swell up with water, increacing
the overall weight of the crop, but not adding to the oil content, with the
effect of turning 2000kg of olives into 3000kg of olives, the extra 1000kg
being mostly water.

As a result the percentage of oil extracted was reduced relative to the
weight. I averaged 7%. However, In Mildura I don't think you normally
receive the same amount of summer rain as the Hunter, so this shouldn't be a
problem?

My decision has been to stay with the Manzanillos, but to pickle them and
not worry about oil unless we get a dry summer. I have Corrigiolla and
Paragon for oil.

Mike Wilson.
Hunter Valley.
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