Olives101.com

Making olive oil at harvest takes time, muscle and a bit of guidance. Visiting mills in the region, known as 'Italy's green heart,' provides a lesson in its history and a chance to sample the season's offerings.     Reporting from Civitella, Italy— The anonymous stone building on the outskirts of Civitella, my Umbrian hilltop [...]

A new trend is changing the olive industry in the north state, now it’s all about the oil olives and the expensive liquid gold they produce. In the olive city, there’s a new boom surrounding the fruit, Vice President of Crane Mills Brian Crane says, “The olive oil industry is what wine was decades ago.” [...]

By Kim Woods, Harvest, which began in mid-April, is wrapping up after severe frosts last week. Wagga Wagga, in NSW, is home to about 55,000 trees owned by investment companies and small growers. The Riverina Olive Growers Association has 45 active members picking fruit from up to 30,000 trees. Association secretary Vici Murdoch said unseasonal [...]

By Julie R. Johnson, Officials are scratching their heads as to why this year’s olive crop is the pits. “The crop looked really good early on,” said Doug Compton, assistant commissioner of the Tehama County Agriculture Department. “But then we began hearing reports of poor fruit set from olive growers.” Across the state, Tehama County [...]

The Department of Food and Agriculture is predicting this year’s olive harvest will be one of the best in years. Harvesting near Dongara began at the weekend and will move further south to Gingin before wrapping up around June and July. The department’s Dick Taylor says production is expected to rise by 3,000 tonnes to [...]

The 12th “Days of Olives” festival started this weekend in Punat on the Island of Krk in the northern Adriatic and will continue until 19 October. Visitors will have a chance to participate in the olive harvest as well as in olive processing and to attend gastronomical, cultural and and other programmes. Days of Olives [...]

According to estimates of Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development they are expecting a harvest of 38,000 tons of olives or 51,000 hectolitres of olive oil in Croatia. The best harvest is expected in Dubrovnik-Neretva county and the worst in Sibenik-Knin and Zadar counties, especially on the islands where the expected harvest is up [...]

By Marc Lutz, Grapes may always be king, but olive crops could hold steady second. A lumbering beast crawls along the ground in the olive orchards near Kingdon and Thornton roads, gobbling up the green-black fruit from hundreds of trees. The grape-sized olives are then spit into a large plastic bin to be transported to [...]

By Hana Levi Julian, Tens of thousands of acres in Judea and Samaria are blanketed with olive groves that now are bare of their fruit as one of the most successful harvest seasons in history draws to a close. Palestinian Authority Arab farmers earned estimated revenues of more than $140 million from this year’s olive [...]

Article by Janette Williams, Photo by Walt Mancini, There were many people volunteering to pick olives at Caltech’s second Olive Festival Friday, November 7, 2008. Harvesters will transfer the olives to crates for commerial processing. For the second year, Caltech turned what was a major annoyance on campus – olives underfoot from the 130 trees [...]

By Geoff Johmson, The local olive oil industry is expected to boom over the coming years, but California has seen better olive harvests than 2008. As the state’s olive crop comes in, it appears an April frost and a May heat wave have knocked California’s olive crop to less than half of that of 2007. [...]

By PJ Bremier, “I’ve got 38 of the most wonderful olive trees and they produce tremendously,” Jim Simon says gleefully as he looks forward to his annual olive-pressing party in November. That’s when Simon, owner of the Building Supply Center in Point Reyes Station, and his wife, Linda, spread out a festive Tuscan feast and [...]

By Mohammed Zaatari, With the start of the autumn olive-picking season in Lebanon, farmers in the South flocked to their olive groves Monday in order to gather the fruit and ensure provisions for the upcoming year. In the village of Tanbourit near Sidon, Umm Abdo Sawma expressed satisfaction over this year’s crop. “We have a [...]

By Dan Bryant, Mechanical harvesting research in California olives during the 2007 season documented greater efficiency with hedgerows over traditional trees, according to Louise Ferguson, University of California, Davis Extension specialist in pomology. Ferguson explained the 2007 trial results and plans for the 2008 harvest research during a Central California olive day at Exeter recently. [...]