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<pre>When we wrote our book various publishers warned us that Australians and
New Zealanders were very sensitive about advice from people living
outside the country. For this reason we tried to make it as low key as
possible. You have been warned. Delete now if you are a sensitive soul.

Why are Australians and New Zealanders starting at the bottom of the
list of olive oil varieties?

It seems to me that the way to select a variety is to start at the top
with the best known varieties for quality olive oil and see if they are
adapted to Oz and NZ conditions. If not work down the list.

What is actually happening is that growers seem to be working from the
bottom of the list of options with obscure or so called dual purpose
varieties and hoping that they may turn out well in the southern
hemisphere in spite of the fact they have failed to make a name for
themselves in the major olive oil growing regions. Is it something to do
with the gravity in the south being the other way round?

Of course this may work. Pinus radiata and Shiraz are fairly obscure
trees and vines in US and France (or at least they were when they were
grown first in Oz and NZ) that Oz and NZ have turned into world beaters
but I'm not sure that starting that way is the best method of developing
the olive oil industry.

Cheers Brian Chatterton.


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<pre>> When we wrote our book various publishers warned us that Australians and
> New Zealanders were very sensitive about advice from people living
> outside the country. For this reason we tried to make it as low key as
> possible. You have been warned. Delete now if you are a sensitive soul.
>
> Why are Australians and New Zealanders starting at the bottom of the
> list of olive oil varieties?
>
> It seems to me that the way to select a variety is to start at the top
> with the best known varieties for quality olive oil and see if they are
> adapted to Oz and NZ conditions. If not work down the list.
>

Brian,

To fill you in a wee bit on the Aussie Olive Experience, or at least, as it
happened to me and why I planted Manzanillo...

I went to a meeting of people interested in setting up an olive industry
about 4/5 years ago. The various speakers spoke at length about the
potential, but qualified that with the comments that there wasn't a lot of
knowledge base about olive growing in the Hunter. As for suitable species,
your guess is as good as ours.

Armed with this opinion, I spoke to Olives Australia who said much the same
sort of thing ... we don't really know. So it comes down to "best guess" and
keeping my options open. Manzanillo looked like a good option ... either oil
or pickling, grown in a number of climates, successful as the major olive of
the biggest olive producing country.

Experience now shows this was a gamble that paid off as a table olive, but
not as an oil olive ... but that is on the basis of one year in one grove.
With hindsight, we would have planted Corrogiolla, but again the other
question is one of supply and availability. I'm sure there are plenty of
other species out there that would be worth a go, but without 10 years in
the ground its pretty hard to say which is "right" trees for an untried
area, and which species are available from nurseries ... we did diversify a
bit by planting UC13A6, but they turned out to be mis-labelled Manzanillos
too.

I gather from your book that you inherited your trees from the previous
owners? If you were planing from scratch, and didn't have the local
knowledge of other growers in the area, what would you have planted? Would
you have gone for Tuscan species for Umbria? Would they have done as well?

Regards,

Mike Wilson.
Hunter Valley.
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