Lebanon: Chouf residents rush to buy imported olive ‘wood’
By Maher Zeineddine,
A new type of “firewood” is flooding the Chouf market this autumn as residents, preparing for the coming winter, rush to buy a Turkish-style composite made primarily from olive pits. According to Kamil Halabi, a Chouf resident, the “‘2007 firewood,’ as we are calling it, is very effective and a money-saver.”
“Each log weighs about 1 kilogram and can burn for almost 2 hours,” he explained.
“I have made an agreement with an owner of a wood plant in Turkey, allowing me to import a ton of olive firewood at $130, a total much less expensive than the price of local firewood extracted from orange or oak trees,” Halabi told The Daily Star on Monday.
Halabi explained that a “ton is made up of 40 bunches of firewood, with one bunch containing 25 logs.”
He also acknowledged that consumers will still need to buy “normal” wood, especially oak and orange. “But instead of buying two truckloads of normal firewood, one can now buy one normal and one from the 2007 type,” he said.
Posted in Ecology | Environment, Middle East, Olive Tree by: Olives101
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Olive oil milling is rapidly taking hold in S.J.
By Reed Fujii,
LODI – Jeff Colombini is the president of Lodi Farming, a large diversified farming operation.
Still, early last week, he found himself on a towering harvester clattering down rows of a 3-year-old olive orchard, gathering fruit destined to yield a greenish-yellow gold in the form of oil.
No, he wasn’t short of help, Colombini explained Friday. “We’ve got to know how to do it before we tell somebody else how to do it.”
That’s part of the steep learning curve faced by everybody associated with Corto Olive, an oil milling operation built a couple of years ago between Lodi and Stockton. They are among a handful pioneers beginning commodity-scale production of extra-virgin olive oil in California.
After test production of about 3,000 gallons of oil last year, the intent is to squeeze 40,000 or so gallons out of the new plant, said Brady Whitlow, president of Corto Olive. “This is our first real season.”
That will gear up to 120,000 gallons next year, and after additional expansion, the mill on Live Oak Road west of Highway 88 eventually will pump out 600,000 gallons each season.
While California farmers have long grown olives for direct consumption, planting for large-scale oil production is relatively new. And it’s expanding rapidly.
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Give a live olive tree as a gift from Lindsay Olives
By Guy Keeler,
You can give the symbol of peace and goodwill this holiday season — and help needy people around the world — by giving live olive trees to the green thumbs on your Christmas list.
Lindsay Olives, a division of Bell-Carter Foods Inc., is offering manzanilla olive trees to gift givers through the end of December. The two-year-old trees, which are 3 feet tall and come wrapped in burlap, are available for $50 plus shipping.
Proceeds from tree sales go to the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is combating world hunger and improving environmental conditions by planting edible fruit trees and plants. The trees, ready for immediate planting in warm weather areas, come with planting and care instructions. Most will begin bearing fruit when four or five years old. The olive branch long has been regarded as a symbol of peace. In the biblical account of the flood, a dove sent out by Noah returned with an olive branch, indicating the end of God’s anger. The flag of the United Nations features a map of the world surrounded by two olive branches.
To order gift olive trees, call (800) 765-2029 or go to www.lindsayolives.com.
[Source] Click here
Posted in Ecology | Environment, North America by: Olives101
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Vigilance saves olive trees from infestation
By Julie Kaufmann (Mercury News)
Our stories about home-cured olives and the widespread infestation of the olive fruit fly in our area (Food & Wine, Oct. 24) brought a phone call from Phil Cosentino, who retired from the family grocery business and now grows and sells fruit from more than 500 trees on two acres in San Jose.
“For the first time in five years, I have worm-free olives,” Cosentino reports. He has managed to keep the olive fruit fly at bay with a combination of three methods.
Weekly from the beginning of May until last week, Cosentino sprayed his three olive trees with GF-120 NF Naturalyte, an organic pesticide-bait with the active ingredient spinosad, recently approved for home use. He used a Windex bottle to apply the spray and notes that because GF-120 is an attractant, it’s not necessary to spray the entire tree: One ounce of concentrate per tree per application is what he uses. Spray as high in the tree as you can reach.
“It doesn’t take much,” he says. So even though the spray is expensive, a gallon of concentrate at about $100 should last a home gardener a long time. He dilutes the concentrate as recommended on the label.
He also applied Surround kaolin clay, an organic repellent. It leaves the tree and fruit a white color and must be washed off the fruit after picking.
In addition, he placed ball traps baited with Torula yeast in the olive trees. The yeast tablets last about 5 to 6 weeks, Cosentino says. He kept an eye on the traps and restocked them with yeast as needed.
He’s triumphant this year, but he knows that he’ll have to remain vigilant if he wants to keep putting up his home-grown olives in future years. The popularity of the olive as a landscape tree and the mobility of this pest means that his trees continue to be at risk.
Cosentino has already picked the olives from one tree green and is curing them in his garage. One tree is ornamental. He’s letting the olives on the third tree ripen to black.
He shared his recipes for both green and black olives.
If you are interested, Phil Cosentino’s fruit stand, J&P Farms, is at 4977 Carter Ave., San Jose. The season starts in mid-May and will continue until Christmas this year. Call (408) 264-3497 to see what’s in season. Produce is sold on the honor system with customers taking what they want and dropping their payment into a marked slot. You can also hear his produce tips on KLIV radio (1590 AM).
Posted in Articles, California, Ecology | Environment, Olive Tree by: Olives101
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2008 Californian crop production could surpass that of France, official says
By Elizabeth Larson,
Moving along at a pace of about 2 acres per hour, Olive Glen Orchards’ new Australian-designed olive harvester began making its way through hundreds of acres of trees last week, as harvesting of olives for olive oil started in the Sacramento Valley.
Patricia Darragh, executive director of the California Olive Oil Council, said the harvest started about a week ago, with harvest in the more northern areas of the state set to begin early next month.
Warmer weather has brought on an earlier harvest this year, said Darragh, with olives doing well in intense heat.
“The harvest appears to be quite bountiful,” Darragh said.
This year’s harvest also will be significantly larger than last year’s, said Darragh, when late rains and winds affected the blooms and resulted in a short crop.
The stronger anticipated crop this year, plus more trees coming into production, is expected to lead to the biggest crop the state’s industry has had. Darragh estimated California’s olive oil production will hit half a million gallons this year, almost double last year’s level.
Statewide, there are 10,000 acres of olives for oil planted in 48 counties, said Darragh, with half that number in actual production.
“There’s going to be really significant growth the next two years,” said Darragh. More trees are producing and still more trees will be planted, she said.
She estimated that 2008 could see 750,000 gallons of olive oil produced in California, which will surpass France’s production.
In 2009, she said, the industry anticipates hitting the one-million-gallon mark.
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