Hedgerow olive orchards: reality or utopia?

Abstract

Nowadays, olive orchards have a densities not higher than 330 trees/ha. The major cost correspond to harvest operations, which is very labour demanding. Recently, a new type of olive plantations with densities around 2.000 tress/ha has appeared.

The major advantage of this type of plantations is their totally mechanised harvest, by vineyards straddle-harvesting machines.

These plantations have a very early bearing and very productive, at least in the first years. The most common cultivar used is Arbequina.

In the present work, data of the first four harvest of a variety comparative trial are reported. This trial include Arbequina, Arbequina i-18, Arbosana, Koroneiki, Fs17 y UC 2-35 cultivars. From the Arbequina and Arbosana had been the most productive and UC 2-35 the less vigorous. Results of a trial testing densities between 780 and 2580 trees/ha is also described. Up to now, the higher densities have been the most productive ones. However, more definitive results can be obtained in the coming years, when problems of competence among trees started to appear.

In summary, as in the near future is expected that the subsides from the EU are going to be greatly reduced and the labour for harvesting is difficult to find, the ability to this type of plantations to be profitable at long term will determine their success.