Olives101.com

Olive growers say crop losses from an infestation of olive lace bugs and fungal disease are worse than first thought, with yields down by about 50 per cent.
The Hunter Olive Association’s vice-president, Mike Wilson, says about 450 tonnes of olives were processed for oil this year, down from 880 tonnes in 2007.
There was also [...]

Sedat Kirt,

Shocked by the destruction of a forest of ancient olive trees amid the environmental degradation of a coal mine, a young businessman from Datça has initiated an extraordinary eco-project.
Building engineer Timur Kabaklarlı, 32, now owns 1,500 olive trees after seeing the centuries-old trees being cut for coal mining. During a business trip to Bodrum [...]

The 2008 California olive crop forecast is 65,000 tons, down 49 percent from last year’s crop of 132,500 tons, according to a report Tuesday from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Bearing acreage is estimated at 31,000 for a yield of 2.1 tons per acre, less than half of last year’s yield of [...]

An experiment to grow olive trees in Sri Lsrianka is to be launched as a Board of Investment (BOI) approved project with the objective of exporting olive oil.
An agreement to this effect was singed between the BOI and the Broucke Eco Enterprises Australia last week.
This project will experiment with growing olive trees imported from Cyprus [...]

By Mark Logan,
The Mediterranean diet, which includes copious amounts of olive oil, is well known for its health benefits but that is not why retired physician John Milla, and his wife Lorraine, took to planting olive trees at Abilene Grove 13 years ago.
An avid tree planter, Mr Milla was initially interested in the investment opportunities [...]

By Cecilia Parsons,
This year’s “off year” table olive crop looks to be thin and scattered statewide.
Olive growers and processors met in July to estimate the size of the 2008 California table olive crop. Members of the California Olive Committee concluded that processors could expect 65,000 tons this season.
Adin Hester, president of the California Olive Committee, [...]

A code of practice is being drawn up for table olives to guarantee the authenticity and quality of Australian table olives and distinguish them from imported products.
The AOA Table Olive Subcommittee has been working with Food Standards Australia & New Zealand (FSANZ) to draft the code specifically for table olives. This code will adopt the [...]

Spraying olive trees with a natural product from sugar beet has successfully stopped some varieties of olive trees in the South Island being knocked by frosts.
Alex Houliston, head of science at Christchurch Girls’ High School, took a year off teaching high school to study the frost problem in his own orchard.
Some olive orchards have suffered [...]

An olive tree on the Mount of Beatitudes blessed by Pope John Paul II is the only one producing olives this year, according to the forester at the site.
Catholic Online reports in the Jubilee Year of 2000, Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land stopping at one point to bless an [...]

The Punjab government is all set to launch olive cultivation over 300 hectares under a ‘pilot project’ to ensure better remunerative returns to the farmers on one hand and towards a dedicated push for diversification of agriculture on the other.
Reviewing the prospects of the olive plantation in a meeting, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal [...]

Varieties of olive trees recently tested by researchers could be cultivated with moderate saline water irrigation.
The olive’s reputation as a health food is being borne out by modern science, as studies of olive-consuming Mediterranean peoples have shown. To keep the world’s olive lovers satisfied, an intensive wave of olive planting has occurred in the past [...]

The Council of Members of the International Olive Council held its 14th extraordinary session at its headquarters in Madrid from 8 to 11 July 2008. Discussions were chaired by Israel.
The first day of the session focused on the future action of this intergovernmental organisation. A Discussion Group met to determine the special-interest topics and priorities [...]

By Jacqueline Smith,
Jim Syme, president of Olives New Zealand, expects local olive growers will produce around 220,000 litres of olive oil this year, up from 185,000 litres in 2007.
A bumper year for New Zealand olive oil has some in the industry predicting it will follow wine as one of our most promising exports.
Just three decades [...]

By Julie R. Johnson,
The Sevillano olive crop in California is doing poorly this year with little fruit on the tree,
As olive growers in the state continue to struggle in an industry fraught with problems such as the olive fruit fly, foreign imports, and labor issues, it was unwelcome news to learn this year’s Sevillano olive [...]

This olive tree is over 1,500 years old and stands on the Ionian island of Ithaka, the home of the hero, Odysseus who returned there after the Trojan Wars.
Astronomers have now confirmed that Homer’s description of the solar eclipse when Odysseus got home and reclaimed his wife, Penelope from her suitors, points conclusively to 16th [...]

By Chloe Warburton,
Harvest time usually conjures up images of workers picking olives over the space of a long day, but technology has created a new and quick way to bring the crops in.
Max Boyle, owner and manager of Oil Hydraulics in Shepparton, has hit the jackpot with his OCCA Olive Harvester, a machine that attaches [...]

Il Buco owner Donna Lennard will debut her olive-oil documentary, La Raccolta, at the Food Film Festival tomorrow night. The film captures the waning traditions of Umbria’s olive-oil harvest, and a tasting of what Lennard calls the region’s “full-flavored, herbaceous, and spicy oil” will follow. Lennard attended NYU’s graduate film program, but this is [...]

It’s been 11 years since Skarmoutsos decided to embrace his family heritage and become an olive farmer.
Mr Skarmoutsos owns Ambrosia Olive Farm, Eltons Road, Silverdale.
He bought it in 1997 as a bare 40 acre property.
Within two years he had covered it with 4000 olive trees.
Mr Skarmoutsos said his family had been growing olives in the [...]

By Kyra Gottesman,
Jennifer Davis is The Kalamata Queen, her kingdom is a small orchard with the Sutter Buttes to the south, Lassen Peak to the north, the Thermalito Afterbay to the west and Oroville Dam to the east.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” asks Davis, surveying her silver-leafed olive trees and the magnificent 360-degree view. “I love my [...]

Olive thieves struck again.
The Amenduni Australian Olive Expo’s grove holds 200 olive trees, all of which have been stripped of their fruits due to be harvested before the October display.
The Hunter Valley, NSW, has also been hit recently.
The ACT grove is surrounded by security fences, which are more than one-metre high and have barbed wire [...]

A number of olive groves in the Lower Hunter have nothing to harvest this year because of widespread damage from the olive lace bug.
Mike Wilson from the Hunter Olive Growers Association says the weather this year has been a major factor in the spread of the bug, which he estimates has destroyed at least 100 [...]

On April 3rd 2008, Its Majesty King Mohammed VI carried out the inauguration of a mechanized plantation of olive-trees (directed by GPS) of Spanish varieties (Arbequina and Arbossana) and Greek variety (Koroneiki) pertaining to the Company AGRO HEALTH and located in the Moroccan area of Beni-Mellal.
This plantation was designed and led technically by the [...]

By Rhys Blakely,
The desert of Rajasthan in the north of India is to be planted with a million olive trees grown in Israel in an effort to transform the landscape and the fortunes of its struggling farmers.
The countries are finalising a three-year plan on agriculture that will introduce several crops associated with the Middle East [...]

For thousands of years, olives have proved a difficult and labour-intensive crop to harvest, but a Moutere grower thought there has to be a better way. Anne Hardie visits a grower who has a knack for inventions.
Harvesting olives can be a labour-intensive process that has been just about begging for a bit of Kiwi ingenuity. [...]

By Michelle Fenech,
It’s harvest season for olive growers in Wollondilly with Danny and Aydin Fahri having more than 20 tonnes to crop.
Mr Fahri said he was getting good quality olives this year after recent rainfall in the shire.
“Usually my trees don’t look so healthy,” he said.
“And I’ve never had a full dam at the end [...]