Olive crops
Eating Olives
At Lamda Olive Grove 4 kalamata Olive trees provide sufficent large, black olives for domestic use. They are picked by hand in October and must then be processed in salted water for two months before eating. The exact processing method and time varies from household to household.
Olive Oil
64 trees at Lamda, 10 at Trigono, and 5 at the Lemon Grove provide small olives from
which oil is produced. Qulity varies with location, and year - reflecting the
micro-climate of each site as well as overall conditions for the year and how the
trees were pruned the previous year. Lamda, which has rich but well drained soil,
produces the highest quality.
The trees have been pruned to provide a main crop on alternate years, making it easier to manage from a distance, though bad weather may still ruin a good crop.
Annual Olive Production
2008
The 2008 olive harvest will be at the beginning of December and is expected to be another small crop.2007 olive oil crop was harvested in mid November 2007 and yielded a total of 143.4 litres.
2006 crop was lost because harvesting was left too late and the fruit was damaged by frost.
2002-05 crops were not harvested and trees not pruned properly.
2001 Crop was low
2000 Crop was medium
1999 Crop was heavy - over 400 Litres.
lemon Production
If the olive harvest figures seem depressing then the lemon harvest has been catastrophic.
The 2000 crop was good, but had not been harvested before the Ggrove was purchased and it was too late to take the crop to the local co-operative.
2001 a 15 ton crop.
2002 smalll crop in late October, but trees had been pruned so main crop was low.
2003 - crop harvested by others - no value
2004 - 08 no crop harvested due to tree damage, and low economic return
lessons learnt
One major factor contributing to the loss of crops is likely to have been the change from normal commercial fertiliser to organic, which proved expensive and difficult to apply. In 2008, manure has been applied but it could be better to revert to the commercial product.others have also found that organic methods produce such low yields in this area that it is not a viable option.