Dear all and particularly jamal

Regarding growing olives and vineyards.

In Western Australia as the rest of Australia there is great interest in
olive growing. The whole southern part of Australia ie one half of the
content, giver or take has the climate for olive growing. Everybody
talks about soils, water and varieties but the most important factor is
temperature ( and I am sure that I will get a lot of comments or Flak).
If it is too cold the trees suffer. Low temperatures are required to
give adequate chilling albeit that Kalamata and Koroneiki as examples
only need a few hundred hours whereas Sevillano requires about 1000
hours. If the themperature is excessively high again the olive trees
become stressed, lose their flowers and have problems with pollination.
After this well drained intermediate soils with an slightly acid to
neutral pH are advantageous in reducing waterlogging stress and allowing
for better bioavailibility on nutrients than from alkaline soils. I have
walked the hills of Crete (Crete=creta = limestone= calcareous soils)
and have seen very productive trees. Of course soil pH and drainage can
be amended at a price! Getting to the aspect of water the olive tre
needs a minimum of about 300ml/year even though olive trees growing in
North Africa seem to do with less. These are often widely spaced trees
and well rooted because of their age. Trees growing under more modern
farming systems ie 250-300trees/ha may be a different story without
irrigation. It is also well recognised that table olives varieties
require more water than oil varieties. It has been traditional to dry
out oil olives before processing. Who wants to cart more water to the
mill and then have to dispose of it.

Getting back to the main point of the question. In Australia there are
three types of olive operations emerging.

1. Large Scale olive plantings - 500 to 1000 ha 250-300 trees/ha
mainly for olive oil production - to supply bulk markets, supermarkets
and possibly have some premium blends
2. Olives with other horticulural or farming activities - up to 5000
trees mainly for oil but also table olives - varietal oils, upper end of
the market products
3. Lifestyle - 500 to 1000 trees - this is for professional who work
100hours a week and want to got their farm to relax on the week ends -
good relaxation picking 25-50 tonnes of olives a year.

There are inumerous vineyards in Australia that have planted olives with
grapes. This is an excellent idea but not new. This complimentary
cropping has been carried out for over 4000 years around the
Mediterranean. There are several advantages.

¥ Time - pick the right varieties and olives appear in the first few
years.
¥ Propagation - if you cannot afford to buy trees-propagate them
yourself its easy - it just takes time. The old folk stuck broomstick
thick cuttings into the ground! If you have no cuttings volunteer to
prune someone elses trees.
¥ Water - from my experience in Western Australia - young trees need
10-20litres/week to 14 days depending on climate. Older trees need about
10 times that. Remember mature olive trees grow well without irrigation
( although crops are lower). When I visited Calabria recently I saw old
unirrigated trees that were yielding 800 kg of olives! As part of our
annual International Olive School we picked 220kg of olives from a tree
at the Benedictine Mission at New Norcia.
¥ Attention - if you love olives thats as good as all the fancy things
that you will hear
¥ Olives are not as finiky as grapes in growing or marketing
¥ The farming operations are complementary - the equipment needed except
for the harvesting aspects. Also tou pick grapes in summer and olives in
winter. Pruning of olives is during or after harvest.
¥ Olive oil is a well recognised quality product worldwide with
excellent prospects for local, regional, national and international
markets.
¥ Stand alone olive mills start from as little as US$10000 eg Olivia,
Oliomio ( I have no shares in these companies, but I know the equipment
works). Otherwise join up with a coop or take the olives to a major
processing mill.
¥ Greek-style green table olives are easy to make. a Participant of our
Table Olive Workshop growing olives organically processed one and a half
tonnes of olives. No caustic soda! little pollution and the olives dis
all the work. His product was so successful that all of it was purchased
by a wholesaler who jAzzed up the olives with chilli, herbs, galic etc
¥ The fresh olives (Green) are very popular - people want to make their
own olives. Over here in Perth last season in the supermarket they
fetched $3/kg.

Now I will ask the question in 5 years if you do not plant the olives
look at all the fun you will be missing out on.

If you do plant olives - make sure you have a well thought out brand
name that will identify your product and then happy cellar door tastings
and sales of olives and olive oil.

Ps do not forget the crusty bread!

Professor Stan Kailis
Department of Plant Sciences
The University of Western Australia
Perth WA
emails - at Uni skailis@agric.uwa.edu.au
at home kailis@ca.com.au