It’s Olive Picking Time at Caltech
Students at the California Institute of Technology campus were able to forget rocket science for a day and harvest olives instead.
Students and faculty put away their laptops Friday to climb 16-foot-high ladders, perch in cherry pickers and grab the black and green fruit that would otherwise stain the university’s walkways.
Their goal is to make some 1,200 bottles of olive oil to raise money for scholarships, staff bonuses and student activities.
“It’s not really just about the olives. It’s about everyone working together,” said freshman math major Tim Black of Wisconsin, who was one of more than 500 people picking olives.
Olive picking became a fall event at the campus more famous for producing math geniuses and rocket scientists after two students began plucking campus trees as a joke last year.
President Jean-Lou Chameau, who saw them, told biology major Ricky Jones and physics major Dvin Adalian he would prepare them a home-cooked meal if they could figure out how to turn the olives into olive oil.
They met the challenge using blenders, concrete blocks, window screens and a centrifuge.
Their efforts garnered so much attention that Caltech decided to create a full-blown harvest festival this year.
Most of the olives that students and faculty plucked were being turned over to the Santa Barbara Olive Co., where they will be professionally pressed and bottled.
But Jones, 22, and Adalian, 20, kept their hand in, designing and helping build a human-powered crusher that rolled two one-ton metal wheels over some of the olives, which were then wrapped in cloth, placed in a press and squeezed into a bin.
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120000 hectares of increase in world’s Olive cultivation
Every year 120 thousand hectares is added to the Olive cultivation areas in the world!
Translated By Aref Mohammadzadeh,
“Currently about 10 million hectares of farmlands is under Olive cultivation,” said Habib Al Seid, executive head of the International Olive Council (IOC), referring to the increasing cultivation area of Olive in the world.
“The main part of this area is for dry-farming while just 11 percent of the world’s Olive gardens is for water-farming,” he added.
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DNA shows ancient ship carried olive oil, oregano
DNA scraped from inside clay vessels show that a ship that sank off the coast of Greece 2,400 years ago was carrying a cargo of olive oil, oregano, and probably wine, researchers reported on Friday.
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Northern Yuba County, CA climate’s is considered ideal for growing olives
Northern Yuba County is nothing like Greece, but the Mediterranean-like climate and rocky soils in the foothills are considered ideal for growing olives.
By Laura Brown,
“We’re on a very similar latitude as Athens,” said Steve McCulley, one of four partners who operates the company, Apollo Olive Oil, in the remote community of Oregon House. The partners rent land from Renaissance Winery to grow 6,000 trees on sunny terraced hillsides.
Last year, Apollo was recognized as one of the top 10 producers in the world by using an untraditional modern milling system that limits oxygen from entering the oil. It is one of California’s up-and-coming boutique olive growers that is rapidly gaming popularity in the food world.
On Saturday, Apollo will join two other award-winning olive growers and five wineries based in the foothills of Yuba County during the 6th annual North Yuba Gourmet Harvest Festival. The festival of gourmet foods, olive oil and wine tasting and tours of Apollo’s state-of-the-art milling system will take place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The festival will to benefit the Lewis Carroll School in Oregon House.
Growers such as Apollo and others in nearby Loma Rica are waiting for temperatures to drop below 42 degrees, so they can harvest fruit low in sugar and high in oil. Once harvested, the olives will be milled into extra virgin olive oil and sold at specialty markets where they will fetch top dollar for their unique and intense flavors.
There are about a dozen olive growers in Yuba County and more than 200 producers of extra virgin olive oil in California, according to the California Olive Oil Council, which sets standards of quality in the state.
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Pakistani Government to develop olive oil production
Federal government has planned to enhance olive oil production and processing areas in 12 district of Balochistan to bring 6000 acres of land for the cultivation of olive orchard.
According to the ministry of food and agriculture sources during the five years, 675000 plants in these districts which are considered as low delta crop for mass propagation of olive oil would be planted.
The sources said that to standardize the propagation and cultivation techniques for mass production of olive plants nurseries would be developed during the period.
The official said that about 6000 acres or equivalent number of trees will be developed as orchards on farmers’ field during the project period.
The sources said that the research wing of Agriculture Department has given a serious consideration to the problem of the drought in the region searching all possible solutions to overcome the crisis pertaining to the water deficiency for all kinds of crops particularly the olive orchard.
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