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<pre>Lee, for what it is worth. When my friend and myself first took an interest
in olives - 1997 - we were keen to find as much about it as possible.
Because the olive industry in Australia is a new/old industry there wasn't
all that much information publicly available. The Internet has changed this
in a profound way and as we are all finding out on this discussion group we
have a lot to learn from each other. Australia is in a "new industry" phase
in regard to olives - it has become fashionable!
But there are others (Craig Hill in Adelaide, South Australia) who will be
able to tell you the real olives story in Australia and it goes back to the
first settlers bringing plants out from the Med on their sea passage to
Australia.

Thinking that there was no record of olive growing in our area (Bega Valley
on the East Coast of Australia and fairly close to the Victorian border) we
probed through an article in our local newspaper. Immediately we got
results and ironically we were informed that we drive past a stand of ten
olive trees everyday. They were planted around 1850 1860 and of course we
never noticed them. Another farm close by has one superb colonial tree which
stands 35 foot tall. These trees have never been pruned, watered, picked or
looked after in any way, so you could almost put them in the 'wild'
category. We sent cuttings and fruit from these trees to Adelaide University
for DNA testing and oil content analysis. The oil content was high and the
fatty acid results were quite good.

So to answer your question - your wild olives could certainly be harvested
and pressed. I am sure if you could get them DNA tested you would know
whether they were table olive varieties or oil varieties.

Regards

Phil Bramley
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