Isobel45

Hi, i hope you are prospering.

I couln't find the private message you sent, to reply to. Can you help with this question?

What would you regard as being the minimum essentials in order to re-start the olives on the property. There are no olive farming bits and pieces there - despite it being an olive farm! Just the trees. Apart from a chain saw or two, tree rake shakers, nets and transport, is there anything else?

We really appreciate your input. Thank you for replying.

philat98

One thing you might look out for is insect damage to the fruit. In Italy there are flies that lay their eggs in June and July on the olives. The worms makes holes that lowers the quality of the fruit and the oil. I don't know whether they exist in Spain. If they do you might need to spray.

olivefarmer

First things first. Private messages. When you log in at the top right it says Welcome Isobel45
You last visited xxxxx
Private messages Unread 1total1Click on private messagesDepending on your trees, I would suggest the following.

Two nets. I use very large nets as the trees have large canopies. The larger they are the more stray olives from bashing off with fibreglass poles , you will catch. They are more unwieldy though when large. Go for something to give you double the canopy size as a minimum.

Two fibreglass poles. A big one for your fellow who will be needed for company and to help manouevre the nets. and a smaller one for yourself. You only need them to reach the highest branch. Any longer is just wasted effort.

Gloves. use the thin rubber faced ones. About 1.35 euros from your local shop.

A container to put the olives out of the net into to then lift into your trailer. You can buy plastic flexible containers with two handles.

A plastic rake and wooden handle. This is to gather up olives off the ground. Take them seperate to the mill. If you have a lot of on ground olives you might buy a scoop with handles that also acts as a riddle.

Hand axe to knock off basal shoots in summer.

Saw. Without seeing the trees and how many , it is difficult to advise but you might get away with a bushman (bow) saw and a curved saw on an extendable pole. ( They can be bought with a string powered pruner). You can also get battery powered general purpose saws that people have said are effective for hobby garden type pruning. I have no experience of those. Petrol 2 stroke powered chain saws and pole saws are great but not cheap. Chain saw is useful if you are going to be processing your own logs for fuel.

Sprayers. You will need to do some form of weed control. We thought "eco" but you soon realise that is a hiding to nothing. 16 litre back pack is efficient but heavy when full. You might have difficulty in buying effective weedkiller without being in a co op and being accredited to use it.
Trees . You need ideally to spray your trees several times a year. Foliar Feed and pest control. Buying the pest control for trees will be very hard without acreditation. A back pack will be hard if your trees have any height even with a lance. Maybe get your neighbour to do yours at same time as they do theirs (for a fee).?

Small unbraked trailer (max load of 750 Kg and a load cover) Make sure your insurance covers its use.

Gin, Beer and wine.

Look forward to hearing how you get on.

Mark604

And don't forget a hat.
You'll be out in the sun a lot.

MikeJ

Fascinating (and educational) thread.

Rotor

So what kg/ha should one expect on well managed land?