OldMcDonald
Platinum Member
Cjm 005, Quotes from your first link:-
There has been an increase in olive plantings in the last 10 to 15 years primarily southwest of San Antonio as well as several attempts in the Hill Country. Not all of these plantings have been successful. We continue to emphasize that the planting of olives can be quite risky in many parts of the state as the best production
and quality will occur in areas with mild winters and long, warm, dry summers to mature the fruit. Biased claims made by folks wanting to sell trees, irrigation equipment or install trees should be considered with great caution.
General rules of thumb are that young trees will be killed in the winter when the temperature drops below 25ｺ F, small branches on mature trees will die when the temperatures drop below 22ｺ F, mature trees can be killed to the ground in the winter when the temperature drops below 15ｺ F and rain,very high humidity,
and/or hot dry winds during bloom in the spring can seriously hamper fruit set.
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Experience throughout Europe is that anything below 25F kills even mature trees. There was such an event one night (I forget the exact date, but can look it up if you must) about 8 winters back. I had a grove of fortunately only 77 trees totally killed out. They were more than 60 years old. Millions of olive and eucalypt trees were killed that night right across Portugal. The temperature was a fairly constand minus 7 Centigrade across the whole area that was affected. There are places within 20 miles of me that do not grow olives because they cannot due to being just a little bit colder. We have not yet had a frost this winter (but it is early days yet) so we could still suffer frost damage. What is the coldest temperature in the 15 years record you have?
Do you know how much water your well is capable of producing? How long will you need to irrigate each year? Do you have permission to do so?
Have you ever picked olives for a week or more? How many a day did you pick? As I said in my previous post the Arbequina is tiny. Picking an olive weighing two grammes takes just as much effort as one weighing 10 or 12, but it does take 5 or 6 times as long to pick the same weight. If you can pick 100 kilos a day you are doing well. Arbequina is also not a good candidate for mechanical harvesting, due to uneven ripening. You will certainly have to use mechanical harvesting if you plant the acreage you propose. Check with whoever is likely to do your harvesting that their machines are capable of working on the layout you propose. Ask them also how much turning space they need at the end of each row. Have you checked with the proposed buyers of you olves that they will in fact buy what you produce? What stage of ripeness do they want? Minimum quantity per delivery? How will you store the olives between harvest and delivery? Have you costed the equipment you will need to produce your own oil? Arbequinas are too small for table use.
Do you need to fence immediately? $15,000 is a lot of money to recover from something that is not producing any income.
You can farm, and you will if you really want to do so, BUT I have grave doubts that olives should be your first priority and main crop. I have seen so many people with good ideas but the wrong property. My favourite animal is the pig, but I have not kept them since 1979 because I have not farmed in an area where I could easily market them. Please, please think very long and hard again, and seek advice from those who have been there and done that before embarking on any agricultural venture. Do not listen to theorists, take advice only from those who have laid out their own money and learned from many years of experience.
There has been an increase in olive plantings in the last 10 to 15 years primarily southwest of San Antonio as well as several attempts in the Hill Country. Not all of these plantings have been successful. We continue to emphasize that the planting of olives can be quite risky in many parts of the state as the best production
and quality will occur in areas with mild winters and long, warm, dry summers to mature the fruit. Biased claims made by folks wanting to sell trees, irrigation equipment or install trees should be considered with great caution.
General rules of thumb are that young trees will be killed in the winter when the temperature drops below 25ｺ F, small branches on mature trees will die when the temperatures drop below 22ｺ F, mature trees can be killed to the ground in the winter when the temperature drops below 15ｺ F and rain,very high humidity,
and/or hot dry winds during bloom in the spring can seriously hamper fruit set.
.........................................................................................................
Experience throughout Europe is that anything below 25F kills even mature trees. There was such an event one night (I forget the exact date, but can look it up if you must) about 8 winters back. I had a grove of fortunately only 77 trees totally killed out. They were more than 60 years old. Millions of olive and eucalypt trees were killed that night right across Portugal. The temperature was a fairly constand minus 7 Centigrade across the whole area that was affected. There are places within 20 miles of me that do not grow olives because they cannot due to being just a little bit colder. We have not yet had a frost this winter (but it is early days yet) so we could still suffer frost damage. What is the coldest temperature in the 15 years record you have?
Do you know how much water your well is capable of producing? How long will you need to irrigate each year? Do you have permission to do so?
Have you ever picked olives for a week or more? How many a day did you pick? As I said in my previous post the Arbequina is tiny. Picking an olive weighing two grammes takes just as much effort as one weighing 10 or 12, but it does take 5 or 6 times as long to pick the same weight. If you can pick 100 kilos a day you are doing well. Arbequina is also not a good candidate for mechanical harvesting, due to uneven ripening. You will certainly have to use mechanical harvesting if you plant the acreage you propose. Check with whoever is likely to do your harvesting that their machines are capable of working on the layout you propose. Ask them also how much turning space they need at the end of each row. Have you checked with the proposed buyers of you olves that they will in fact buy what you produce? What stage of ripeness do they want? Minimum quantity per delivery? How will you store the olives between harvest and delivery? Have you costed the equipment you will need to produce your own oil? Arbequinas are too small for table use.
Do you need to fence immediately? $15,000 is a lot of money to recover from something that is not producing any income.
You can farm, and you will if you really want to do so, BUT I have grave doubts that olives should be your first priority and main crop. I have seen so many people with good ideas but the wrong property. My favourite animal is the pig, but I have not kept them since 1979 because I have not farmed in an area where I could easily market them. Please, please think very long and hard again, and seek advice from those who have been there and done that before embarking on any agricultural venture. Do not listen to theorists, take advice only from those who have laid out their own money and learned from many years of experience.
