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<pre>Hello fellow members,
My name is Scott Taylor i,m a small olive grower in the mildura
region.I have 6 mth old M,s or should that be X,s. By chance i have
stumbled onto the X debate which, with what i,ve been reading is
felling more like a Trip! I aquired my tree,s from O.A.which with
there assurance that this was the tree to plant for oil.As my tree,s
are so young my first instinct is to pull up roots and run from this
troublesome problem and re-plant with a well known specific oil
tree.I will be doing some more research into this subject before i do
this,but i,m interested to hear what other growers have decided to
do.Any coments would be helpful.
regards Scott Taylor
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<pre>> Hello fellow members,
> My name is Scott Taylor i,m a small olive grower in the mildura
> region.I have 6 mth old M,s or should that be X,s. By chance i have
> stumbled onto the X debate which, with what i,ve been reading is
> felling more like a Trip! I aquired my tree,s from O.A.which with
> there assurance that this was the tree to plant for oil.As my tree,s
> are so young my first instinct is to pull up roots and run from this
> troublesome problem and re-plant with a well known specific oil
> tree.I will be doing some more research into this subject before i do
> this,but i,m interested to hear what other growers have decided to
> do.Any coments would be helpful.
> regards Scott Taylor

Scott,

I am one of the growers who experienced some problems with Ms this year.

My opinion is that the problems arose from the amount of rain we received in
December and January, which caused the Ms to swell up with water, increacing
the overall weight of the crop, but not adding to the oil content, with the
effect of turning 2000kg of olives into 3000kg of olives, the extra 1000kg
being mostly water.

As a result the percentage of oil extracted was reduced relative to the
weight. I averaged 7%. However, In Mildura I don't think you normally
receive the same amount of summer rain as the Hunter, so this shouldn't be a
problem?

My decision has been to stay with the Manzanillos, but to pickle them and
not worry about oil unless we get a dry summer. I have Corrigiolla and
Paragon for oil.

Mike Wilson.
Hunter Valley.
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<pre>Scott

You have a number of options

¥ Remove trees - $ down the drain
¥ Leave and check oil content and extratability also ask others in the
Mildura area about Manzanillo-local knowledge is valuable - The
Manzanillo problem may be climatic
¥ Go into the table olive business.
¥ Graft the trees with a well selected variety ie table - Kalamata,
Volos
or oil - eg Koroneiki, Frantoio

Stan Kailis
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<pre>.> ¥ Graft the trees with a well selected variety ie table - Kalamata,
> Volos
> or oil - eg Koroneiki, Frantoio

The grafting technique I saw in adelaide is similar to a 'T' bud graft
but with 2 horizontal cuts. They call it a 'patch' graft and use it
extensively for propagating onto the wild (olea europaea) roostock.
Apparently this is the only method of propagation in much of Greece,
they teach the little kids to go out in the bush and pull suitable stock
and plant in their orchard, or where ever. All thru the Adelaide Hills
are 'secret' locations for rootstock (just follow the purple Valiant!).
The next year the graft of the desired cv is made onto the rootstock and
away it goes, enhanced by the superior rootsystem. There are literally
10's of thousands of nursery plants grown this way and the proponents
swear by the product. You can also use this method on existing trees but
some care must be exercised in choosing a compatible combination, I have
seen kalamata on paragon roostock where the kalamata struggled for years
before the paragon shot out and completely overgrew it. Also seen are
olive groves where one half are on grafted roostock and the other on
struck cuttings, without knowing too much about which varieties they
were the grafted trees were consistently superior. The owners regretted
the money saved on buying cheaper plants.




Roger Farquhar Hunter Valley

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