Hello Dan

Great talking with you.
Dan I'm a simple old fashion (traditional) olive farmer..I have learned my craft from my father and he from his father and he from thousands of years of knowlegde past down from the Ancient Spartans and Byzantines.

I guess you can measure the olive and weight the olive and all sorts of other modern day scientific advances..

In my village all the scientific reasearch was done by our ( ancient) ancestors..My father was smart enough to understand and apply (by trial and errow) the tradditions past down to him...Our yields are always consistant (1 kilo of oil from 3 kilos of olives = 33 percent olive oil...while others in the village follow recent trends..their yields have droped off..1 kilo of oil from 11 kilos of olives = 9 percent oil.

To measure olive yield (productivity), I just don't understand what can be easier then wieghing the olives, then weigh the oil pressed from the olives and devide..example; 2005-6 Harvest..(1)2500 kilos of olives...(2) press..(3) 833 kilos of oil...(4) 2500 devided by 833= 3

Yield for 2005-6 1 kilo of oil from 3 kilos of olives==33 percent olive oil.

But I guess when you have over 800 verieties of olive trees and you are trying to decide which to plant...It's like finding a neelde in a hay stack.

My advice would be..Look closely at our ancestors..They are the one's that planted the right trees at the right elevations, with the right soil and climate..All you need is the hand of man to appriciate, understand and manage it all correctly.

For the past 20 years the olive oil industry has been highjacked by ignorent chefs, writers, magazine aditors, chemists, scientists, millionaire olive hobbiest, and government officials..they have greatly contributed to the dicline of olive oil quility..they have trasplanted olive trees from their natural habitats to different hills, valleys, countries and continents..changing the climate, soil and changing the quility and yields..California can ONLY produce 3 percent olive oil..Californias olive to oil yields are 1 kilo of oil from 32 kilos of olives..

Believe or not Italy can ONLY produce less then 15 percent extra virgin, while Spain can produce less then 10 percent extra virgin..France ( only God knows what they are doin)..Argentina, USA, can not produce extra virgin with-out the aid of enzymes..food colorings ect..

It is extremly difficult to produce high qulity olive oil..so producers have gave up a long time ago and now use fancy marketing gimmicks to sell, what is cheep, low qulity olive oil.

Hope to hear from you again..

Sincerely
Mihalis