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<pre>A recent page in the Victorian (Australia) weekly times (22 Nov 2000)focuses
on three stories:

"Olives can become significant pest" by Kim Woods

"Contracts still on offer" by Paul Sellars

"Grove proves lifestyle bonus" by Paul Sellars.

The three articles are interesting from a number of perspectives but it was
the last article that caught my attention.

The article mentioned that land preparation, installing water mains and an
irrigation system including plant supply and planting cost about $75,000 for
a 8ha grove. A second statement also piqued my interest " The reason we
selected olives is it's minimal work" but the third statement left me
puzzled " on the 20 acres, after 4 to 5 years, the numbers you can return
are something like $60,000 to $70,000."

Is this a somewhat an very optimistic view to take?


Regards,

Phil
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<pre>Dear All

We have growers in the prime wine area Margaret River selling EVO
varietal oils at $100/litre.

Working back if maths are right

- if a young tree (4-5years) gives 20kg fruit = 4litres of olive oil =
$400
250 trees = 1ha = 5000kg fruit = 1000litres of oil = $100000

I have been asked by many what number of trees do you need to make money
out of olives - my first answer is none

After being told by the enquirer - you know what I mean - I then answer
- one

Well I may be a little out looking at my calculation above, but I am
nearly right when you are considering the return from a 500ha olive
grove with 300 trees/ha.

Stan Kailis
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<pre>I am in the process of planting 2,700 trees on an average of 35 square
metres per tree. This works out to be around 10 hectares or about 22
acres. The cost of installation of irrigation is as follows.
The bore pump plus starter was around $6500.
The bits for the mains, sub mains, sprinklers etc was $20,000.
The bore itself was already drilled when I bought the land But I
understand it would have cost around $8000 to $10,000
I got a guy to come do trenching for me at around &1.2 per metre back
filled. There was 1500 metres of it. I laid all my own pipes and
connected everything myself and so saved around $11, 000. So all up the
cost was about $40,000, I have seen elsewhere that it should cost
between $2000 to $4000 per Ha, so I am pleased with the result.
Hope this helps.

Andrew & Val
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