Olives.........or lack of them

[Enrique]

Hi,
The folloing applies to Jaén province, I hope others have better results,

Mrs E has just finished our harvest.......taken 18% of an average year............

Talking to the Mill owner who has vast personal area he says less than 10% of normal crop.........

Over to you olive................

[gavilan]

?is that cos of drought, disease or ???

[El Cid]

No, its Brexit!

Sid

[Enrique]

Hi gavilan,
Lack of rain at the right time...........so those that irrigate might have faired better.

We have put in some "mega water storage tanks" end of last year so will see how things are for the next season.

[olive]

Mostly due to lack of rain but also that hot spell we had during pollination season. Different varieties fared differently.

That must be heartbreaking Enrique. Still a lot of work.

Last year we got 70 cents a kilo via our co operative for our olives.That was in the final reckoning in December. My immediate neighbour has about 2000 trees and is whipping through harvesting them and is currently 24% down. He has some that have had nothing or very little on them. Others are normal. The saving grace is that we will get significantly more per kilo. Rumour has it that it will be around a euro a kilo but we wont find out till next December.

We have had a walk around our grove with said neighbour and some others. All nodding , tutting and so on. The concensus was down a quarter. Ours will be ready to harvest next month.

Olive oil will go up. If you feel inclined to buy in bulk to beat the rise do keep it in the dark and cool.

Quite sobering to think we will be back in the “ dry season” in about ten weeks and we have had so little rain.

[gavilan]

I hadnt realised that Granada and Jaen provinces had suffered drought/lack of rainfall like us in the Axarquia ... our local reservoir level hovering around 10% ... but Diputacion de Malaga plans to plant thousands of young trees around this dying reservoir ... make a sort of leisure centtre there for tourists ... no reference to where water is coming from to irrigate saplings ... nor for how long til trees mature enough to survive without help

https://www.axarquiaplus.es/la-diputaci ... a-vinuela/

[olive]

More and more of Southern Spain is becoming desert like. Not good for folk that depend on olives etc. Not just the little Axarquia

[gavilan]

'little Axarquia' ... I did sound very parochial ... sorry! ... but not just a lack of rain issue but temperatures have been weird too ... November and December here temps in low to mid 20s ... the early January temps dropped to around 8 - 12 ish ... plus a bitter howling North wind ...

[gavilan]

drove up to village/Alcaucin this morning ... saw frost on banks beside the lane ... havent had frost for nearly 20 years!