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<pre>Hello all,

There seem to be some misconceptions about this green – black olive
issue.

First, all olives start of green and slowly grow darker as they mature,
how slow their pigmentation changes depends primarily on the cultivar
(the green chlorophylls are replaced by darker pigments mainly
antocianes). Some cultivar turn dark very early while others will only
have a dark color when they’ve long passed optimum maturation.
Fruit color should not be taken as a indicator of when to harvest by
itself, one should always take in consideration the cultivar behavior.

As for the variation of the oil content during fruit maturation, oil
buildup in the fruits generally stops around late summer to early
autumn, from then onward oil yield will only apparently go up, i.e. as
the olives mature the water content will decrease so one apparently
gets more oil per kilo/pound of labored olives, but the quantity of oil
obtained by nº of harvest olives will generally speaking be constant
over time.
This is why a precise determination of the proper harvesting period is
crucial. If one harvests early it will be harder pick the olives from
the tree, because you will need more force to physically detached them
from the branches (this is particularly true for mechanical harvest),
the cost of the oil extraction is higher (you have to labor more
kilos/pounds of olives per kilo/pound of oil produced), but on the
other hand one will have a higher quality of olive oil.
In the case of a late harvest it will be easier to pick the olives and
one gets an higher wield in the extraction, but probably part the
production has already fallen of the tree and the quality of the oil
extracted is lower (this is a very important issue if your orchard is
situated in a place where the olive fly exists).
When determining the harvest date one must take in consideration all
these factors, if your goal is to produce high quality them you must
harvest early, if you intent to produce a lampant oil for refining them
you should harvest late.

As for Mr. Afta Hussain question, I suggest you read the wikipedia
article on olive oil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_oil), there
you will find some useful information on the subject. If after reading
it you still have questions post them on the group, I’m sure someone
will gladly answer them.

Cheers,

Joao Correia


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