November in the Olive Grove

​Spring winds have been off the scale these last few weeks so hopefully your trees are still standing! If so they should be budding up nicely ready for flowering later this month.
These winds will certainly have cleared any debris from the tree canopy and there is no chance of disease getting foothold in a constantly moving branches.
The regular top ups of rain will also help maintain good soil moisture levels at this critical time. This, along with the warmer than usual temperatures, seems to have helped with a vigorous start to tree growth this Spring. 

​As these little buds open into flowers to be pollinated the strong winds could be a problem. Pollination is a passive process whereby pollen is spread by the wind either from the tree itself or from other nearby olive trees.  For pollination to be successful, a pollen grain must land on a viable flower stigma and stick there.  Hot dry winds will dry out the stigma and make it less sticky hence less likely to enable pollination.  Rain or high humidity can also reduce dispersal of pollen by washing pollen off the stigma or by saturating the pollen grain so it becomes too heavy to be carried by the wind.
Pollination is a critical time for olive trees but all we can do to help is hope for dry weather and gentle winds as we progress through November.
 
Extra Virgin Olive Oil Awards
Every year the Olives NZ awards reflect the exceptional producers we have in New Zealand. Olives NZ is the industry standards regulator/monitor maintaining our high standard of olive oil certification. Microfact: the laboratory standards for Extra Virgin Olive Oil in NZ are higher than that required by the International Olive Council.
Each year NZ producers can submit their olive oil for certification as Extra Virgin. That involves laboratory testing and organoleptic assessment i.e. taste test and labelling criteria.  Only after all those parameters are achieved will an olive oil be certified as Extra Virgin. Only certified oils can be entered into the Olives NZ EVOO awards.
This year three producers in Marlborough entered four oils into the competition.  The results were perfect. Everyone medalled.
Faversham Olive Grove - GOLD for the grove blend
RSA Three Services - SILVER for the grove blend
Isobel Olives - SILVER for Koroneki and SILVER for the grove blend
 
All were pressed at our local olive press and they are certified the best of the best.
Your olives were pressed there too and although you didn’t go through a certification process you can probably rest assured that your olive oil is pretty much up there too.
 
Look after those trees they grow a precious commodity.