Olive's characteristics

The Olives Anatomy

The olive fruit is boticanically classified as a drupe, it's similar to the peach. Inside the stone has one or two seeds. The olive has got a lot of oil content. They have a black colour and they will hang on the tree for several weeks till they fall off.

Olive's are diffeerent from the other drupes in their chemical composition by having a low concentration of sugars (12%), high oil content (30%) and with a strong taste.

It's component parts are : the epicarp or epidermis, the flesh and the endocarp which has a woody shell with the seeds in it.

The oil content as the general composition of the pulp is highly variable, and it depends on a lot of factors such as climate, soil, culture, systems, pruning, fertilizers, tree treatments and harvesting methods.

Harvest Methods

They are picked while they are still green but they have a full size. Mold is a problem for the fruit between picking and curing.

The different types of methods are:

-The sweep of the ground to pick the olives that fall down.

-You do an extension of nets or canvases around the olive.

-Retail-trode and milking of the tree.

-Pick up of the nets with the olives inside.

-separation of the leaves from the olives.

-The best of these methods is the milking: you can do it by hand or with rackets. The best of these methods is the milking ; you can do it by hand or with rackets. To obtain a high quality of oil, is very important to pick up the olive in the best moment of the ripeness, when the colour of the olive changes.

For ten years, it has been trying the vibrator skill but its emplyment is unlimited for the excessive corpulence of the olive trees.

Types of olives

-The Sicilian Style: It has a medium green colour; they are cured in salt brine and preserved with lactic acid.

-The Gaeta Style: It becomes from Italy, it's cured with dry-salt and then, they are rubbed with oil. They have a black colour and they are wrinkled, but surprisingly mild.

-The Nicoise Style: Its clour is brown to brown-green-black olive and it has the origin in france. It has a small size and it's very tasty.

-The Conservaela Style: Is the most important olive economically. It grows throughout the country from sea level up to altitudes of 600 meters. It has a oval-shaped size and a thin, elastic and resistant skin, and the pulp has a fine, consistent texture.

-The Calamata Style: Its name derives from the region surrounding the town of calamata in the southwest peloponese. This is the second most important variety. They are cylindro-conical, curved, showing a prominent tip at the end. Their skin is thin, elastic and has an intense black colour when it matures.

-The Chaldiki Style: It is wainly cultivated in the chalkiki region of northern Greece. They are more elongated.

Germination of the Olive seeds

To break the dormancy of the olive seeds:

1- Remove the bulb.

2- Excise the endocarb.

3- Put the seeds on a bed of 1 cm of fine moisted perlite and cover the seeds with 1/2 cm of fine granules of perlite.

4- Store the seeds in a glass or a plastic container and put them in the fridge.

5- They start to germinate in 4 weeks.

6- Transfer them into a germinating room and in an appropiate media (20 degrees).

7- In 2 weeks you will see the seeds coming out.