Selce

Here in Gargano, Northern Puglia, any organic olive trees have 90% loss of harvest yield due to weather and fly problems.
Anyone else had similar problems?

philat98

I have just come back from Massa e Cozzile in northern Tuscany and the olive harvest is in full swing with trees loaded with fruit. There was a brass band to celebrate the first day of pressing. Here in Umbria a lot of trees were hit by the late frost and snow in February and there is a poor harvest. Has the Xyllela reached your area?

Selce

Interesting, the spread of the bacteria Xylella fastidiosa is a real problem further south but as far North at Brindisi I think.
Close inspection of our trees show the problem is the fruit fly. As you say late cold weather along with extended dry weather has created, for some reason, the ideal conditions for the fly.

philat98

I think that the trees need to be sprayed to get a decent harvest. The locals here mill them regardless of worms but the taste of the oil is poor. The litre oil I bought in Tuscany was a real treat.

clint

Same here in the Brindisi area, to be honest even trees that have been treated are having a poor crop due to the formichina problem

Selce

As I am new to the olive production it appears there are many alternative methods.
Imidacloprid is the chemical used for blanket spraying, not sure if organophosphates are banned. Even so as I have been in farming in UK for too long, I dont want to go down that route!
I will look at baiting and preventative measures first.
These trees are registered in an organic organisation so don't want to jeopardise that.
Early days as first year.
Has anyone else got olive trees organically grown?

Selce

Thanks Clint, another pest to look out for! Didn't realise ants were such a problem to cause crop reduction.
Having moved a lot of dead trees about, mainly Almond, I have noticed a lot of ants. Best get wood burned this winter.

clint

Some of the locals here call it formichina but it is actually a fly. I remember one of my neighbour once told me people were looking for cozze in the field I was really it turns out to be snails

We have been here 10 years I don't believe in spraying chemicals of any sort so mine are not treated at all and don't seem to be any worse or produce any less then the ones that have been sprayed

What many people do around is treat the tree trunk with calce

Geordieborn

They harvested here earlier than normally (3-4 weeks) because they reckon the fly is bad, but if harvested early the impact on the taste is not as great? Another friend reckoned you need to pick the olives even if you are not pressing them and along with those on the ground bury them at least 10cm. Must be soul destroying to do so! We went to one of the local bars a week or two ago and they give us fresh bread drizzled with their own new oil. It was superb, nothing like oil within the first day or so of pressing.

Selce

Clint, thank goodness the ants are only going to bite me not the olives.
Geordieborn, yes early harvest here as well, but they were early and mostly black anyway. Not sure where you are geographically. We have been given plenty of local oil from friends here, you simply cant compare it to what we have been used to in UK
I have also read and been told to pick and bury to destroy the lava in the fruit, the problem is so many have fallen.Probably due to very uncharacteristic heavy rain and strong winds in summer. Northern Gargano had severe flooding.
The answer then is to cultivate or mulch. Thats ok if you are not on terracing. No tractors can get access, maybe small machines, will have to investigate.
I have mulched quite a bit as I have had to cut a number of pine trees (20) as they were near house and electric cables.
Problem then, pine mulch can impoverish ground, so some fertiliser may be needed.
Who said this was going to be easy?!

I think I will look at trunk tape and fly bates.

Pruning is desperately needed, so if pruned hard this 18/19 year, a good harvest will only be anticipated for 2 years time and so extra year to eradicate fly as much as possible.

The snow and cold also knocked back the fici-d'india is that common with any one. We are near coast 2 kilometre but quickly unto 300m so can get chilly.
Going to plant a lot more December, I've been told best time.

As a farmer from UK it's fascinating to experience these problems, although could do without them all at once.

philat98

philat98

These are permitted biological controls - 2013 from VitainCampagna

Selce

Excellent thanks!

olivefarmer

Interesting thread on olive farming in another country. We are in Central Andalucia and started 14 years ago. We had grand notions of ecological production but soon gave up on that. Not just the weeds ( a billion have already germinated in last weeks rains) but the olive fly. Our trees (each with several trunks average 80Kg).

last night at our local bar, we had a heated debate about the latest problem here which is the African olive fly. It is resistant to current sprays. The local mayor walked off and came back 3 minutes later with five affected fruit. The mark on the fruit is different from our endemic fly. I dare say our co op is working with Monsanto through API to tackle the problem . Just sprayed our trees this week with Co Op approved liquids..

Thankfully we have not had Xylella Fastidiosa here yet. When/If it arrives it will hit some of my neighbours badly. They have been understandably building up land holdings while loans are cheap and a lot have in excess of 1500 trees so 100,000 kilo a year operations with no diversity- just olives.

How much do you guys get for your organic olives for pressing to produce oil or do you just get them pressed for your own consumption? We got 64 cents a kilo plus co op bonus (about3%) for our winter 2016/17 campaign. Wont know figure for last years till end of Dec as our Co op doesn't do the final tally till then. It is expected to be as much as 80 cents. That is all tree olives. Those off the ground pay less.

philat98

The normal fly is bactrocera oleae. What is the latin name for this African olive fly?