Tigereyes

Hello,
We have bought a house in Abruzzo. It has 150 mature olive trees included (although thats not the reason we bought it!)
I'm green fingered but never done olives before. We arent expecting or relying on profit from them as we know this last crop was particularly bad in the region. However, I was wondering what the rough kilo per tree is and what we could expect to get for them? We are planning on keeping most of the oil (if we get a good yield) ourselves but an idea would be helpful
The trees have been left to their own devices for at least a year so very overgrown and plenty of weeds so I'm preparing my gardening gloves for some serious pruning!

Thank you

Geordieborn

Neighbour has about 50 trees and last time they had a reasonable crop (last 2 have been poor, well actually 2yrs back nothing) they got around 80L. That's a lot of trees and a lot of work! Have you seen the trees since the snow? There is a lot of damage to the olives and an awful lot of pruning going on right now. From what I've been told they recover very well, so not a major worry, but a lot of work.

Tigereyes

Hi Geordieborn,

Thank you for the info. Yes we were up there yesterday and the trees are in really good condition (although very overgrown!). Its in a pretty sheltered spot so they seem to have escaped the worst. The next door neighbour was pruning his when we were there
I'm preparing myself for the hard work ahead, thankfully i love gardening

ononno

I only have 11 good trees, but in 2015 they yielded 320 Kgs. of berries, from which we got 48 litres of oil. We paid 52 eurines to the frantoio for milling, and 100 eurines to a professional olive tree surgeon for some serious back pruning. That means no olives 2016, but should get a good crop this year; a neighbour is going to give ours a light pruning, and then a spraying with insecticides/food/antifungus.
With your number of trees respectfully suggest you join your local agricultural
association known as 'coldiretti'. You will get professional help and advice and possibly be able to jump on a lucrative Brussels gravy train. I don't think you'll manage that number of trees on your own however much you love gardening.
All the best,
'o nonno

Geordieborn

Just to add regards yield, thinking back friends who have about 20-30 very young trees (well under 10 yr old) got 30L. I did not want to elaborate on “a lot of work”, but as ‘o nonno has let the cat out… I would think seriously about what they have said. We’ve helped our neighbours a few time and it is very hard work and time consuming. Better news is you will likely have a lot of olive wood, which as I’ve said before is very good for burning in a wood burner along with a little beech. We’ve been quoted €15/quintale to buy it. Having used some we got for free from our neighbour I can vouch for it being good, almost as good as oak, if not quite as versatile. On a similar subject, be warned, other neighbours had their trees pruned and were charged extra to take the olive wood away!

philat98

You might agree with a local farmer to let him manage the trees and give you some much oil in return.
Why is the field neglected? Are the trees high (above 4m) or is the land fairly steep?

philat98

Just pruning and milling gives Ononno's oil a cost of Euro3 a litre before you take into account harvesting, fertilizing etc. When you buy cheap olive oil you just get olio di sansa. Olio di sansa, a chemically extracted oil from mill waste, was just consumed by farm animals until Mussolini changed the law.

Tigereyes

Hi, The house was owned by someone abroad who planned restoration - got half way through and gave up. Seems like the trees were the last thing on their minds
They are mature trees, maybe 3 meters in height, just VERY bushy so need thinning out a bit to give room for new growth and let sun in, plus removing all the shoots sprouting at the base of the trunks! Very sad to see them so neglected! They are on a slight slope but not too bad at all

Tigereyes

Thank you, we have a woodburner and will be storing it for our own use
Ive emailed the coldiretti to see what advice/help they can offer!