Pruning the Olive trees

[rox]

We ahve had a streak of good weather which has allowed my husband and myself to get a jup on pruning the olive trees. Last eyar we did about 700 of them and so this year we have another 700 of them. This farm had a farmhand but we cna't figure out what he actually did. the trees were left to grow way way to high. The farmhand cut off all the bottom branches, and let them grow to tall, thus all the growth is up high where you cna't reach them with the harvesting equipment. you only wnat to grow the trees as high as you can pick off the olives. i beleive he did it to make his tractoring easier. it is also much easier to cut off a limb/branch at the trunk of the tree rather than carefully cut it back and to try and save as many branches from the limb as possible. 1 saw cut, cut the whole limb verses 50 snips with the pruning shears. i don't know why the prevous owner let him get away with that.

one thing I learned from my first round at pruning you really need to cut them short, these trees thrive here and literally grow 2 to 3 feet in a year. I'm using a Stihl combi system chainsaw, that is on a long pole. my husband is hand cutting with a small saw. I do ove the Stihl saw, I am able to start it without to much effort, and once it is warmed up it only takes one pull to start it back up again.

I did two short rows where I did a full pruning. There are 2 types of pruning the grand pruning and the small pruning. The grand pruning you are jsut cutting the tree down to size and clenaing out the center of the tree. The small pruning you go to each branch and you cut anything that grows down, and crossing branches. Basically you look at the branches and try and predict how a branch will grow and you snip off surrounding branches to give it room to grow. The real payback is with the small pruining, if you do a real fine job at the small pruing you can increase your production 2 fold and that is a lot. After this year getting the trees cut back down to size, from then on we should be able to move through the 12 acre farm and jsut do the small pruning. Our plan is to do the large pruing and then if we have time to go back and get as much small pruning done as we can.



In the first pic i am showing a pruned back tree next to an un pruned one, only the grand pruing has been done, the cut tree still needs the fine pruning done. This will give you an idea of the magnitude of the project.

In the second pic I'm showing a row of perfectly pruned trees

In the third pic I'm showing a close up of a pruned tree. Notice how bad it is is you cut off all the bottom branches and let the trees grow to tall. you ge no bottom growth! Thankfully olive trees are almost impossible to kill and they grow back quickly. Within 2 years the trees will be totally filled out and again need pruing back.

In the Fourth pic is just a small very small part of the brush that we now have to take care of. we lop off the small branches and save branches and limbs for firewood. My husband will burn the branches in the space between the olvie trees. We could never do that before because the trees had grown out to wide and it wasn't safe. now that we cut them back we can burn right in the field, that will be very nice. We have our tractor ready with a spayer filled with water, as our stand by firetruck tanker.

I the fifth pic is an example of what a fantastic crop you can get from a well prunned olvie tree. See how many leaves there are on the branch and how healthy and green it is. If you don't prune, the branches keep growing outwards but towards the center of the tree where the branch starts it is all wood and no leaves. that doens't produce olvies.

 

[Bird]

That's interesting, Rox. I've done an awful lot of tree pruning, but never really had any idea of what I was doing right or wrong. I just cut off anything that's in my way.

 

[EddieWalker]

Great pictures Rox!!!

Nice to see what you've been up to, but it wears me out just thinking about pruning 700 trees. YIKES!!!!

At least you'll have plenty of firewood for those chilly nights out watching the stars with a glass of wine.

Thanks for sharing,
Eddie

 

[Egon]

You have done some major pruning. That is a lot of work.

Just looking at those pictures makes me think of Cheese and fresh baked bread slathered in Olive Oil or perhaps some Hummus.

Next is to make boxes from the larger pieces of Olive Wood and package gift bottles in them. " More Work "

[ Most of the bottled olives I buy have a red center, is this a different type of Olive? ]

 

[RobS]

[ Most of the bottled olives I buy have a red center, is this a different type of Olive? ]

For a real treat Egon, pull out that red center and replace it with some nice bleu cheese. Then surround it with chilled gin and a breath of vermouth. Yum!

Great pics Rox. There are a lot of fruit tree farms and vinyards around here and I see the crews pruning from time to time. Looks like a lot of work. You mentioned harvest equipment. Is your crop machine picked or hand picked? Fascinating stuff, thanks for posting.

 

[GaryM]

[ Most of the bottled olives I buy have a red center, is this a different type of Olive? ]

The ones I buy have anchovies or garlic in the middle. Yum!

 

[rox]

Rob,

For harvest we have a pitchfork like thing on a pole about 4ft long. The head vibrates back and forth and shakes the olvies off the small branches. So we might as well not have any trees taller than that vibrating pitchfork can reach.

Today we took a break from pruing and spread fertilizer. My husband drives the tractor and i sit in back on the little wagon that is held up by the 3ph. he pours int he fertilizer and I use a dustpan and throw about a third of a dustpan full of fertilizer for each tree. I throw it jsut where the tips of the branches hang down. Not to close to the trunk and not to far away. After being on the farm since May of 2004 I have developed ambidexterious skills. I can throw that dust pan full of fertilizer with my right or left arm. When he drives down the center row i throw both right and left. It only took us 4 hours by doing it together. For some reason i didn't help him last August and he has to advance the tractor a bit, get off, throw the fertilizer, get back on etc. a PIA. By himself it takes about a day and a half with us working together it only took an afternoon.

We had our first farm accident today though. Taht little wagon on the back of the 3PH well it is a dumping wagon. We didn't even know it dumped for well more than a year and only found out by accident. My hsuband hung an empty plastic bucket with a metal dustpan inside on the lever the releases the dumping action. When we hit the hardpacked gravel driveway he moved the speed up, as he should have we were going to a different field and he wasn't like racing or anything, well the combination of that increased speed and the bucket hanging on the release hadle, well you know what happened. rox took a dump off the wagon. It happened so fast I didn't even have a micro second to react. one minute I was sitting up in the wagon and the next minute i was thrown to the ground, hit my head on the gravel driveway and these are big chunks of gravel with sharp edges. Good thing though i was wearking a winter ski cap and had on my safety gogles. You need to wear the safety gogels because when you throw the fertilizer pellets the wind throws it back and it gets in your eyes. My head is just a little sore in one spot didn't even get a bump, and thank God for that. My eyes were stinging and I went int he bathroom in the barm and wiped them a bit with cold water and then went back and finished the job. After we were all done i went to the pharmacy and bought some eye drops to have around, we always get eye injuries, branches slapping you in the eye. We needed it anyway. Our first farm accident and it wasn't that bad at all. I think it scared my husband more than me. My husband didn't drive fast on the drivway for the rest of the day... Tomorrow back to pruning.

We are doing pretty well selling our olvie oil, we picked up 4 new private country clubs in USA, might be 5 I'm tired and can't remember.

 

[Bird]

Sounds like your accident was one of those that wasn't very serious this time, but just as easily could have been very serious. We all know farming is dangerous, so we all try to be careful, and yet accidents do seem to happen to all of us at times.

 

[thingy]

Sounds like you prune them about like I prune my apple and other fruit trees,do you prune them as open center,like most apple trees or peach trees,or a center leader like most pear trees?
Thats what I've been doing for last couple days now,[mostly thinking about it though and drinking beer],I only got 3-4 dozen altogether,,would hate to think about any more,,,thingy

 

[Egon]

Glad to hear you are okay Rox.

I may have been classed in with the safety police so questions.
Do you wear a respirator when fertilizing?
Have you considered wearing a hard had with a face shield while pruning?
How about ear protection when pruning?
Have you considered a three point hitch mounted fertilizer spreader?

Ugly picture attached.

 

[rox]

One of my main worries before purchasing the farm and when we first moved was farm accidents. One thing I am grateful for is my husband is very careful with the tractor.

I think there is a hard hat in the barn, if I remember right it has some attached ear mufflers. I don't really need the ear protection though I don't run the chain saw constantly. Cut a limb, turn off the saw, drag it to the burn pile, start the saw, cut another limb or two, stop the saw, drag the limbs to the burn pile. So it is not really constant so I don't beleive I need the ear protection.

I was wearing safety goggles because when I am cutting with the chainsaw/pole saw I am looking up at the limb and I get a lot of sawdust in my eyes. Those were annoying me so I started jsut wearing my regualr glasses, which i need to see distance and i actually don't ever wear on the farm. but for sawdust protection i am wearing them. the visor thing looks good but I am not sure on how practical it would be. I might jsut try wearing that hardhat if i can find it and see how I tolerate it. the thing is, i am moving in and out of the trees under branches stc. The ahrd had may cut into my maneuverability. I'll try it tomorrow and let you know. thanks for the suggestions!

We actually have a fertilizer speader in the barn. however my husband says that the bags of fertilizer are 90lbs each and he doesn't want to have to lift them up that high to dump in the spreader. Plus it looks like it would jsut hold one bag and he can get 3 bags in the wagon. today we used 12 bags. So instead of going to the fertilizer pallet 12 times he only had to go 4 times. So I agree with him about the fertilizer spreader not being all that useful especially if we can get the job done in 4 hours and we only do it twice a year. then there is hooking it up to the 3ph, what a pain.

this is where i disagree with my husband. The farm came with equipment. if we are not going to ever use the equipment i say sell it. it is jsut taking up room in the barn. He won't sell anything and I jsut can't see the logic in that position.

Thingy, yes we do prune the trees so that you clean out the centers. I jsut can't wait until we have done the major pruning on all the trees. i really enjoy the small pruning, and i am not getting to do it because of this heavy work. Next year, next year i hope that we can do a pruning of all our trees in one year. It's liek the saying "A stich in time saves nine" if we can jsut get them all in shape large and small pruining it should be a real pleasure to jsut maintain every year. call me crazy but i really enjoy pruning the trees. even though it is heavy work right now, I still enjoy it. What i don't enjoy and i fear is the burning. i ahve visions of my husband being careles and buring up all our trees. he jsut isn't as careful as I think he should be with burning. Of course he disagrees with me on that score, but I am so fearful of it i jsut let him do it and I literally cose the curtains so i can't see it, or go work in a different field. I wish some day to get one of those Jimma chippers and not burn at all! Like everybody else here in TBN a long lsit of "I'd like to have"

 

[Egon]

Somewhere along the line the fertilizer bags must be moved by hand. If so place them at a height that is above the spreader and just tip them in. A block and tackle could also be used to lift the bags.

Face shield on the hard hats can come in a screen type or solid plastic. The ear muffs will help hold the hat on.

Ear protection should be worn for the chainsaw. Earplugs work well. Ask someone like me who has hearing loss. I go to a party and sit like bump on a log cause I don't have a clue about what is being said.

If the hard hat is clumsy try a climbing helmet that fits close and has a chin strap. Both will stop branches from poking the back of your head and are not uncomfortable once you get used to them.

I wear a hard hat with muffs and foam earplugs.

Have you considered a chipper and using the chips for mulch around the trees? No burning required and will keep unwanted growth down. [ Note, I don't know beans about Olive trees other than the product is a great product! ]

 

[pennwalk]

Rox, I'm really enjoying your posts from France. I'm guessing that if you asked all the folks on TBN who has hearing loss there would be quite a few hands up including mine. In the past no one ever thought about it. Now almost every piece of power equipment comes with a hearing protection warning. Now that the damage is done I wear hearing protection all the time. Tractor, chainsaw, blower, lawnmower, skil saw. People here are also starting to worry about stuff they breath in. You see all kinds of protective masks for sale in the hardware stores. I have one of those chainsaw helmets. It is also good when running the chipper as the branches seem to lash my face quite a bit. Can You rent equipment over there. Here just about all rental places have chippers. I was wondering if on your tractor cart there was a way to lock it to prevent the cart from dumping? Like a pin or a clip. You could probably rig something up especially if you are going to be riding in it. Finally I was wondering how you guys solved the problem you were having with the tractor loosing traction on the hills.

Chris

 

[CurlyDave]

That is an awful lot of trees to prune.

How many a day can you do?

Would it be faster of you got a pole saw for your husband also?

On the helmets, I have a Husqueverna one, with the screen-type visor and it is very good. It catches all the chips from sawing, and yet is easy to clear.

Is there a pruning season? Seems like there should be a better time of year to do it, but I just don't know.

 

[thingy]

You're supposed to prune trees when they are dormit,in the winter,,,,but if you was someplace where it don't have winter?? guess they would still be a time when leaves fell somewhat? pines,still best in winter,,,sugar maples,,they leak alotta sugar sap even in winter,,don't know when,guess when leaves are off for them to,,less stress on tree,,,,,added benifit,,no leaves,,,,but most trees you can prune about any time a little,,,its just best if you got a choice to do it in dec-feb.,,less stress for them,,,or thats the old wisdom anyways,,,,another reason,,,I've found to do it after leaves fall,,is you can see the shape of the tree better,, one drawback,,is if that summer you noticed a dead or dying limb,,it will look like the rest after leaves fall,,you can mark them somehow when leaves are on though,but I always forget to,,thingy

 

[rox]

I am so butt tired (literally my butt is killing me) tonight I almost didn't log in. I have an ideal set up for my laptop, I have a DSL modem that plugs into the phone jack and i just bought like a 50ft phone card and I have it set up on one of those extra large TV trays, they call them personal tables, it sits between the couch and the fireplace. So I can jsut lounge back on the couch and use the internet. i would get a wirelss modem, howver without the french language skills it is hard, plus when they do give me tech support over the phone they are refering to the menus wrtten in french and of course my menus, tool bars etc are all in English. even though my laptop is set up for wireless i have a long phone cord snaking back to my office.

I am so tired tonight we only had ham sandwiches and open faced grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. Everything hurts today, interstingly my neck hurts, the muscles under your chin alongside the windpipe. Even they hurt. I think it must be from grimacing as i am working with that pole chainsaw. And i have to go back at ti again tomorrow. tomorrow I am going to try to work more hours. we ahve been doing this for 10 days and I work 5 to 6 hours a day. It is jsut real physical work and tiring. Starting tomorrow i am going to try to put in 8 or 9 hours, arghhhhhhh.

One reason olvie trees are so popular, people around here jsut treasure their olvie trees, it's really part of their culture, anyway they are popular becsue they are an evergreen tree. Each leaf lives about 3 years so the tree is always green. Actually you can prune olie trees all year long but typically you don't prune after they bud becsue no sense in loosing the olives. I had to get over my Wisconsin background of pruing everything in the fall/cold weather. here if it is to cold you do not prune, you don't want to freeze the tree. Our first year I ahd some heated discussions with my husband becsue i wanted to prune in January, although it would jsut hit freezing at night during the day it was in the 50's and sunny, so against his wishes I pruned. Those trees are flourishing and gave us very high yields. End of discussion, it is janaury, againin the 50's although a couple days it was in the 40's and we are both pruing. I have a convert!

I am doing jsut the major limb removal, and not the fine pruning and I do about 10 trees a day, working 5 to 6 hours. My husband without any power equipment is doign the main/major pruning of about 20 trees a day.

I really really hope i ahve time to go back and do the fine pruing becsue it is the fine pruing that dramatically increases the yields. My husband called the fire department and we are allowed to burn in January and February. Our plan is to jsut keep cutting until it gets to cold to prune the trees. When it hits a cold patch we will burn.

We do have a 3ph chipper but it jams a lot, we ahd to use it last year becasue we had jsut so awful many branches, and the fields we were working in did not have a close enough area we could burn in. For smaller pruing and weeds (my husband hand weeds twice a year the 12 acres) with throw them on a large tarp and hand drag it to our burn areas. however when the brush pile is chest high and 100ft long that is jsut to much to drag so we had to use the less than optimal chipper and we chipped. Burining is much faster than chipping. Like i said i would love to have one of those Jimma chippers, some day, some day.

Of course it would be much faster if we had 2 pole saws however this is the last year we would ever need 2 pole saws so it is not worth the $900 these Stihl pole saws cost. What we really need is a reciprocating saw! My husband (he's 56) came over to my field this afternoon and said he was so tired that perhaps we should buy another small chain saw. We have a pro model stihl chainsaw for cutting down whole trees, and firewood duties. He will use that chansaw when he burns. He uses the loppers to cut off the thin branches then the chainsaw to cut into firewood. We bought both the Stihl chainsaws new, one per year. So I can't really see the need of another small chainsaw but what would be really great would be a sawsall. He was tired when he came to my field and suggested a small chain saw, and i said no not another chainsaw a sawsall. he actually told me to stop working and go on the internet and see how much they cost. Beleive me my husband want strees prunned so for him to ask me to go and research them, well that showed me that he really is pushing himself with all that hand sawing he does all day.

I looked up the deWalt reciprocating saws ad the Milwaukee Electric tool saws. We do need cordless but betweent he 2 companies I did nto find the perfect answer. There is one at Milwaukee electric Tool, and we are form Milwaukee so that has sentimental value for me, that has a handle that you can pull back so that it is straight, looks rather like a cordless screwdrive, straight shaft. Or is can be clicked down to it's normal L shaped position. hwever that one does not ahve the Lithium batteries. The Lithium batteries give more power and less weight. The difference in batteries means lifting 7lbs vs 8.5lbs. Although all fo the DeWalt saws had the Lithium batteries non of them seemd so thave an adjustable handle. When you are working in the branches I am thinking that the L shaped saws are going to inhibit placement of the saw to get a good cut on the branch. IF I would have found the ideal saw I probably would have bought it, and the price for 2 batteries for the better saws are about $375. After this year we will have much less use for the pole chainsaw and much more use for a reciprocating saw. I believe that by checking the US prices when I add in shipping to france, the French prices are going to be about the same or a little higher. Don't forget we have a 19.8% sales tax here, ouch! We have a dealer very close to our house that carries both brands, but it is easier for me to shop and compare US prices over the internet in English than to try and get information form a dealer in French.

So I am kind of stuck becasue i didn't find the ideal saw. i really want those lithium batteries and a saw where you can pull up the handle and have a straight tool. So thus I think we are jsut going to tough it out and not buy anything. It is about a $400 investment for us by the time you add in shipping and I don't want to buy the wrong tool. We have a rather different marriage, it is me who picks out and buys the tools. there are not that many marriages liek this msot of the time it is the man doing that. but he has never been a tool type of guy. When he owned restaurants he hired out everything, but i will say he knows quite a bit about airconditioning (which we don't ahve here). I love tools and I love having the right tools for the job, which is why he finally agreed to me buying the pole saw i wanted.

Basically I need to build back up the right muscles that I used last year at this time. I used a lot of muscles for the harvest but they were different ones. Now that I am doing physical labor i am much more attuned to my body and where my muscles are. So i am using a different set of muscles and it has been 10 days so hopefully I should be able to work more hours and cut more trees which means that is that many less that my hsuband has to cut. I can see why he doesn't use the chainsaw though, most of our cuts are about 8ft up and he would have to be on the ladder on sheels, not a safe way to operate a chainsaw. I have the safe way with the pole saw, my feet are on the ground. A sawsall would be heavy but after this year we would not be using it all day long during pruning, so it would be manageable for him or me to operate. you would use the sawsall on a few branches, then the hand pruning shears or my power pruning shears, then a little bit more sawsall etc. so on an ongoing basis the sawsall it the right tool. just wish i could find the right saws all.

Do you really think I could get hearing loss over intermittant use of my pole saw? Like I described about I cut a few limbs turn it off, drag the limbs, then turn it back on. So it is not like 8 hours of solid chansaw use like cutting firewood. I do like the idea of one iwth a screen. the plstic visor would be way to hot in the summertime, a screen if it kept out the sawdust seems like an ideal solution. I did look briefly in the barn today for the hardhat and didn't see it. if i think about it tomorrow I'll ask my husband where it is and try it out with the idea of getting a model with a screen on it.

i am so tired and everything aches yet i get a tremendouse sense of pride an accomplishment when I look dow a row of trees I pruned. It makes me feel good inside.

i almost forgot to anser about what we did to get traction up the hills. our neighbor fixed our main goldini tractor and it is back to 4 wheel drive. it has been on 2 wheel drive which my husband never told me about for a long time. Thankfully our neigbor is a retired mechanic so he fixed it for free, the parts cost us 1,400 Euros, ouch! We did cement a little bit tractor path on one hill. we need to do more cement work, there are 3 hils we should cement, they really are suffering form erosion. We ahve a cement mixer and sand and bags of cement, jsut need to ambition to get the job done. Plus now that we found ut that that wagon dumps we could pour the cement from the cement mixer into the wagon and dump it so that would reduce the physical labor. Just another project we need to do.

At the end of september and all of October I got all the remaining almond trees pruned except for 5 of them. that was spread over 2 yeas and also an incrediable challanging project, i think even harder pruning than the olive trees. they were soooooo tall. We ahve beautiful almonds, they are budding right now. i hope we get a good crop this year.

Every mornign i ahve the same routine, take 2 Aleve pills to block the muscle pain (I treat for pain in advance!) and touch my toes 25 times to stretch my leg muscles, then it is out the door to another wonderul day on the olive farm. Good night all..

 

[Egon]

Have you considered a small generator and electric chain saws. They can be small and light. Probably work well for what you are doing.

 

[rox]

Eagon,
I did think fo that actually but didn't follow up as i think anything with a cord is going to be more trouble than gain. With all the debris we would spend to much time plling the cord to get it free. We actually ahve a 3ph generator, another piece of equipment we never use, and never will use and I would like to sell. We also have a pole pruner that runs off the generator or it yght be hydrolics form the tractor I can't remeber. My hsuband hooked it up for me to try and it is way way to noisy and again there it the bothersome cord. I have a power pruners like this -

Electric & Electronic pruning - Electrocoup, Maxicoup & Felco 800

Infaco products : electronic pruning shear, electronic lopper, electric tying device, accessories

Check out their movies on the link I provided above

Movies player_progressive

Watch the movies closely and look at what big branches you can cut with these.

So we don't need that pruner on a pole we have in the barn. honestly I would like to have a big garage sale one day and jsut sell everything we don't use.

 

[pennwalk]

Rox, I hope you are taking care of yourselves. Sounds like you are both working pretty hard, Pace yourselves.

I was wondering why your chipper jams? I don't think that my chipper/shredder has ever jammed. I don't remember seeing pictures of your chipper.

About the hearing protection, I don't know what kind of sound does the damage so I just play it safe now and use the ear plugs when ever I use the machines.

Chris

 

[pennwalk]

Rox, those power pruners are pretty slick. Have you got the pole for yours?

About the PTO generator, A lot of the folks here use their PTO generators to provide back up power when there is a power outage. Does that happen over there. We lose power 2 or 3 times a year. A couple of years ago it was out for 4 days.

Chris