Olive Tree Report : 2 September 2009

Our olive trees are thriving. Spring was very rainy but fortunately this did not affect flowering. Right now the olives are green and growing in size – the two finger shots here are a month apart. So far it looks like harvest will be earlier than last year, perhaps in the last weeks of October. If we can avoid the Olive Fly (Bactrocera Oleae) that plagues Montalcino we should have a very high quality yield.

Olive trees bear their fruit on the previous year’s growth, so they tend to bear heavily one year at the expense of growth, then to grow heavily the next year at the expense of fruit. It’s a delicate balance but this natural cycle can, in part, be obviated by pruning in the right way at the right time. We pruned at the beginning of the year to ensure the strength of the tree and for bearing reasons (to keep light flowing to the bearing branches on both sides of the tree).