How to harvest olives
Olive is considered a tree plant, it belongs to the evergreen olive family, and produces olive fruits, which differ from each other in the degree of ripeness, and the period of harvesting, where it is harvested either for pressing, or for its age and extracting oil from it, knowing that the date of harvest is when the fruits ripen, or the oil reaches there The ratio, as it varies according to the place, time, variety, soil, and age of the tree, where pounds are done in different and multiple ways, and in this article we will introduce you to these methods. How to harvest olives Manual harvesting This is the best way to harvest olives, because it guarantees obtaining high-quality fruits, so the hand-picked fruits give oil of high value, and this method is effective for young, low-life, and tender fruits, or which have been pruned unfairly, It is necessary to put tablecloths of cloth or plastic under the trees before starting to harvest the fruits, and then collect them in bags, knowing that leaves may fall from the trees while harvesting the fruits, which requires separating them from each other before squeezing or squeezing the fruits, and that is by screening them, or by shedding Air on it, as can be separated in a For contemporary, when washing, and before crushing, for tall and straight trees, the fruits are harvested by using hand combs, and this is done easily because the fruits are heavy because of their richness in oil. Automatic or mechanical harvesting Various types of shakers are used to shake the main stem, or the branches bearing the fruits, or the large branches, or the fruits themselves. However, shaking the fruits may affect their quality, which requires expediting their age, and it must be noted that these The method is characterized by its speed and its low cost, but it is not suitable for all trees and sites, and it may sometimes lead to breaking the aging branches, as this method is affected by the degree of fruit ripening, the more mature the shaking the faster and better. Hormonal or chemical picking This method relies on the use of chemicals such as ethereal, sol, and oleates that produce ethylene gas when sprayed on trees, as this gas weakens the ability of the fruits to communicate with the branches, as a result of strengthening the neck to form a separating layer between the branch and the fruit, and it is necessary to Be careful when using this method that the sprayed solution reaches all the fruits, because the fruit that the solution does not reach remains connected to the branch, knowing that it is necessary to wait for six days after spraying the trees, taking into account the speed of this method, since the duration of harvesting the fruits of one tree does not exceed 10 minutes, E. A cost that expensive as a result of the high cost of the necessary chemicals, agricultural machinery used to spray, with the need to know the weather; because gusts of wind, rainfall leads to the fall of the olives on the ground before being harvested. Picking with sticks This method is one of the worst ways to reap the fruits, as it depends on hitting the trees with long and thin sticks, which can cause great damage to the trees, as this leads to breaking their branches and dropping large quantities of their leaves, it must be noted that it was stopped About following this method at the present time, because it has negative effects on the trees.