Olive Groves

[ezzra]

Hi All,

Came across this article in the Nation news paper regarding Olive Groves experimental

Groves:

“About 15 years ago, Thailand, under an initiative of His Majesty the King, also took its first tentative steps into olive growing. Luchetti himself, at the invitation of His Majesty, helped launch the program, and today olive groves can be found in areas between Phetchabun and Chiang Mai. “

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2008/01/09...le_30061579.php

Has any one have a comment regarding the viabilities of such venture?

Thanks,

[Nepal4me]

Interesting article.

I would like to hear if growing/harvesting olives is (1) labour intensive and (2) what kind of a return/rai are people seeing.

[ozzydom]

From this account they are not going very well...

www.chaipat.or.th/chaipat_old/journal/apr02/olive_e.html

[ezzra]

Interesting article.

I would like to hear if growing/harvesting olives is (1) labour intensive and (2) what kind of a return/rai are people seeing.

The olive tree is the oldest cultivated tree in existence and can live for thousands of years. It can survive poor soils, with little water, and its hard, thin leaves are adapted to prevent water loss, so it's an extremely hardy and forgiving tree.

Olives flourish where there is good drainage and cool winters, with hot dry summers without humidity.

If you want to grow olives, you've got to fertilise, water and prune to maintain the shape and health of the tree. Olive trees are tough, but one thing that can knock them out is wet feet.

Normally water once a week, say 10 to 20 litres. But you'll come to a stage where the tree will sink its roots down, so you'll need to do less watering but over a longer period of time. A good soak to get down to about 600ml, where the feeder roots are.

Like any fruit bearing tree, you need to prune on a yearly basis. The ideal time is after harvesting, which can start from April/ May, to September. Cut the branches that cross in the centre of the tree to open up the canopy to allow the light and the air through. This assists fruit ripening. Another important reason to prune olive trees is to rejuvenate the tree to produce fruit and wood for the following year,

good idea to use a lot of composted chicken manure. For a one year old tree use 1kg of fertiliser, spread around about a metre in diameter, two year old tree, 2kg of fertilizer, three year old, 3kg, four, 4kg, five, 5kg of chicken manure. After that stick to 5kg per tree with no change due to the increase in year.it is advised to start doing it after harvesting and pruning finished and spread it over six months.

[Joe Walshe]

I wonder if there is a market for Olives in Thailand. I'm not sure Thais like them.

[CM4Me]

Hi All,

Does anyone know where one can procure young Olive Trees?

Tks

[pnustedt]

Does anyone know where one can procure young Olive Trees?

I got a couple of olive tree saplings from Sisaket agri college a couple of yrs ago and am trying them out in my garden. No fruit yet. Guess this may be a very long term venture.

[brent]

I beleive there definitely is a market for olives and olive oil in Thailand domestically for both foreigners and Thais. From my experience the Thais who have aquired a taste for olives, love them, and thats the in the jar variety so wait till they try some fresh marinated deli style olives, yum. I am yet to see any locally grown olives sold ready to eat in a mediteranian style deli, or packaged and sold in super markets, or even used in Thai fusion cooking. I have access to around 10 Rai 16,000m2 of land in the Lime stone hills of far North Thailand that has been used for rice, tomatoes and a chestnuts in the past, which all did well BTW, just no money in those crops. From the recearch Ive done of olives, lime in the soil is an important facter for healthy trees and good consistant grops. Another important ingredient is a cold winter to trigger the tree to flower, and the winter needs to be dry as the olive trees hate wet feet, especially over winter. Makes me think with the cold dry winters of the far North Thailand, with the natural lime soils, access to water all year, make it the perfect location for growing olives. Ive browsed a study conducted by Olive growers In Australia, to see the feasibiliy of producing Olives for olive oil in the sub tropics of Queensland. They found that after only 3 years half the trees in the study were fruiting, some over 20kg per tree, with rates of 20% oil depending on the variety. Thats good news for olive growers in Thailand as it proves that you can grow olives in the sub tropics, I guess the next step is trying to locate these olive varieties/strains, and working out the feasibility of the project. What I like about the olives as a crop is it's resistance to disease, fire, almost any thing you throw at it, it will survive, to over a thousand years, out living us all. Olive oil is good for your health, olives taste great, can be used in skin care and has medicinal value. And the prices keep rising, as demand is growing, and this is without opening new markets, like South East Asia who are yet to aquire a love and apreciation for the olive

[brent]

I just located the study conducted by the rural industries recearch and development corporation in Australia 2003 https://rirdc.infoservices.com.au/downloads/03-021.pdf or https://rirdc.infoservices.com.au/items/03-021 not sure if that will work goodluck.

[khunyod]

On 1/20/2008 at 8:35 PM, ozzydom said:

From this account they are not going very well...

www.chaipat.or.th/chaipat_old/journal/apr02/olive_e.html

Reading the complete report, one does not simply see "they are not going very well" but rather that there are some challenges and in general not enough technical knowledge available to produce good information regarding olive cultivars in Thailand. One actually gets rather a positive sense that with attention and care, some cultivars will show themselves to be viable under Thai conditions and with locally-developed techniques that are needed to bring the plants into effective fruition.

 

 

[ezzra]

19 hours ago, khunyod said:

Reading the complete report, one does not simply see "they are not going very well" but rather that there are some challenges and in general not enough technical knowledge available to produce good information regarding olive cultivars in Thailand. One actually gets rather a positive sense that with attention and care, some cultivars will show themselves to be viable under Thai conditions and with locally-developed techniques that are needed to bring the plants into effective fruition.

 

 

I totally agree there, the question remain is who will pick up the challenge and devote time, money and efforts to cultivate olives in Thailand as i'm sure that olive growing business has advanced quite a lot enough to answer almost all problems and issues regarding successfully growing olives in Thailand...

[JungleBiker]

On 7/3/2010 at 8:42 AM, brent said:

 Thats good news for olive growers in Thailand as it proves that you can grow olives in the sub tropics, 

But Thailand is in the tropics, not subtropics.

 

I did not read the links but I would be surprised if olives could be grown commercially in Thailand. Not just because of the lack of cold but because of the warm wet weather in the summer. I think the leaves would suffer diseases. 

 

Most olive varieties need a certain number of chilling hours (usually hours below 7C) and you probably don't get enough of them in most areas of Thailand unless you go to somewhere at high elevation. 

 

The following paper mentions research in Florida where they are looking for (or hoping to develop) a low chill variety: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329912680_Low-Chill_Florida_Olive  

 

Regarding picking, the trend now is to use dwarf rootstocks (Spanish fruit tree nursery company Agromillora has some) to produce small trees and plant more trees per unit area (google super high density olive). And harvest with a machine that straddles the rows.  See here to get the idea: https://au.agromillora.com/open-field-day-olive-trees/  

 

I know a little about this subject because I once met a Jordanian salesman representing Agromillora while I was doing some work on a farm in Saudi Arabia a couple of years ago. The farm was growing olives, amongst other many things.

 

There is another kind of "olive" (Chinese olive?) that is grown in this region but I don't know how that compares with the Mediterranean olives. 

 

 

 

[drtreelove]

On 1/22/2008 at 5:05 PM, ezzra said:

The olive tree is the oldest cultivated tree in existence and can live for thousands of years. It can survive poor soils, with little water, and its hard, thin leaves are adapted to prevent water loss, so it's an extremely hardy and forgiving tree.

Olives flourish where there is good drainage and cool winters, with hot dry summers without humidity.

 

1000s of years?  Maybe in Jericho. I've been working with them since I was 12 years old and I don't know of an olive tree in my world over 100.  This cut and paste text may apply better to a different climate.

 

There may be some successful growers in Thailand if they know what they are doing in creating best growing conditions and pest management, but it's not an ideal climate.  Olives did better where I grew up in an arid desert, as long as they were irrigated, infrequently.  In a less favorable environment they are susceptible to a number of pests and diseases, root rot, soft bodied scale insects, olive knot bacterial disease, peacock spot fungal disease, and the fruit is wiped out with olive fruit fly., unless controlled  I know because I get constant calls for diagnosis and treatment.