Olives101.com

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

By Leo Leonidou,

One in three children in Cyprus and the EU suffer from some form of allergy, with the condition rife at this time of year on the island due to an increase in olive pollen.
“Olive trees are this year producing more blossom, meaning pollen levels are higher than in the previous few years,” President [...]

By Suellen Jerrard,
Olive oil production in West Australia is expected to slow this year for the first time since the fledgling industry got off the ground about a decade ago.
Falls in production around the State are being attributed to the tendency for olive trees to fruit to their full potential only every second year as [...]