User:Solistide/sandbox/Olive
Growth and propagation
Olive trees, Olea europaea, show a marked preference for
In situations where extreme cold has damaged or killed the olive tree the rootstock can survive and produce new shoots which in turn become new trees. In this way olive trees can regenerate themselves. In Tuscany in 1985 a very severe frost destroyed many productive, and aged, olive trees and ruined many farmers' livelihoods. However new shoots appeared in the spring and, once the dead wood was removed, became the basis for new fruit-producing trees. In this way an olive tree can 'live' for centuries or even millennia.
Olives grow very slowly, and over many years the trunk can attain a considerable diameter.
Olives are propagated by various methods. The preferred ways are cuttings and layers; the tree roots easily in favourable soil and throws up suckers from the stump when cut down. However, yields from trees grown from suckers or seeds are poor; they must be budded or grafted onto other specimens to do well (Lewington and Parker, 114). Branches of various thickness cut into lengths of about 1 m (3.3 ft) planted deeply in manured ground soon vegetate. Shorter pieces are sometimes laid horizontally in shallow trenches and, when covered with a few centimetres of soil, rapidly throw up sucker-like shoots. In Greece, grafting the cultivated tree on the wild tree is a common practice. In Italy, embryonic buds, which form small swellings on the stems, are carefully excised and planted under the soil surface, where they soon form a vigorous shoot.
The olive is also sometimes grown from seed. To facilitate
Where the olive is carefully cultivated, as in Languedoc and Provence, the trees are regularly pruned. The pruning preserves the flower-bearing shoots of the preceding year, while keeping the tree low enough to allow the easy gathering of the fruit. The spaces between the trees are regularly fertilized. The crop from old trees is sometimes enormous, but they seldom bear well two years in succession, and in many cases a large harvest occurs every sixth or seventh season.
Old olive trees
The olive tree, Olea europaea, is very hardy: drought-, disease- and fire-resistant, it can live to a great age. Its root system is robust and capable of regenerating the tree even if the above-ground structure is destroyed. The older the olive tree, the broader and more gnarled the trunk becomes. Many olive trees in the groves around the Mediterranean are said to be hundreds of years old, while an age of 2,000 years is claimed for a number of individual trees; in some cases, this has been scientifically verified.[2]
An olive tree in Algarve, Portugal, is 2000 years old, according to radiocarbon dating.[2]
An olive tree in Bar, Montenegro, is claimed to be over 2,000 years old.[5]
An olive tree on the island of Brijuni (Brioni), Istria in Croatia, has been calculated to be about 1,600 years old. It still gives fruit (about 30 kg or 66 lb per year), which is made into top quality olive oil.[6]
The town of Bshaale, Lebanon claims to have the oldest olive trees in the world (4000 BC for the oldest), but no scientific study supports these claims. Other trees in the towns of Amioun appear to be at least 1,500 years old.[7][8]
There are dozens of ancient olive trees throughout Israel and Palestine whose age has earlier been estimated to be 1,600–2,000 years old; however, these estimates could not be supported by current scientific practices.
Some Italian olive trees are believed to date back to Roman times, although identifying progenitor trees in ancient sources is difficult. A tree located in Santu Baltolu di Carana, in the municipality of Luras in Sardinia, Italy, is respectfully named in Sardinian as the Ozzastru by the islanders, and is claimed to be between 3,000 and 4,000 years old according to different studies.[citation needed] There are several other trees of about 1,000 years old within the same garden. The 15th-century trees of Olivo della Linza, at Alliste in the Province of Lecce in Apulia on the Italian mainland, were noted by Bishop Ludovico de Pennis during his pastoral visit to the Diocese of Nardò-Gallipoli in 1452.[12]
Pests, diseases, and weather
There are various
A
A pest which spreads through olive trees is the black scale bug, a small black
Rabbits eat the bark of olive trees and can do considerable damage, especially to young trees. If the bark is removed around the entire circumference of a tree it is likely to die. Voles and mice also do damage by eating the roots of olives.
At the northern edge of their cultivation zone, for instance in Southern France and north-central Italy, olive trees suffer occasionally from frost. Gales and long-continued rains during the gathering season also cause damage.
As an invasive species
Since its first domestication, Olea europaea has been spreading back to the wild from planted groves. Its original wild populations in southern Europe have been largely swamped by feral plants.[15]
In some other parts of the world where it has been introduced, most notably
Allergenic potential
Olive trees are extremely allergenic, with an
- ^ Oteros, J., García-Mozo, H., Vázquez, L., Mestre, A., Domínguez-Vilches, E., Galán, C. (2013). Modelling olive phenological response to weather and topography. Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment, 179: 62-68. Link
- ^ a b ''Ecosfera'', Público, May 13, 2010. Ecosfera.publico.clix.pt (2010-05-13). Retrieved on 2011-12-07.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Pelion
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
r1
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Municipality Bar, "Kod Starog Bara u Tombi (Mirovica) nalazi se maslina stara više od 2,000 godina"- Near the Old Bar in Tombi, there is an olive tree which is 2,000 years old. Bar.me. Retrieved on 2011-12-07.
- Brijuni National Park. Archived from the originalon 2011-07-21. Retrieved 2007-03-10.
- ^ Al-BAB. "Ancient Olive Tree".
- ISBN 0-297-84789-9.
- ^ a b M. Kislew, Y. Tabak & O. Simhoni, Identifying the Names of Fruits in Ancient Rabbinic Literature, Leshonenu (Hebrew), vol. 69, p. 279
- ^ Dr Shlomo Lee Abrahmov interviews with Prof. Mordechai Kislev (Kislew) 2010, Prof. Shimon Lavi 2012 and Dr. Jennifer Alice Moody, Crete 2012
- ISBN 1-85585-704-9
- ^ Diocese of Nardò–Gallipoli. GCatholic.org
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
j1
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ISBN 0-9577583-0-8.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
j6
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
j7
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Olives as Weeds[dead link] Animal and Plant Control Commission of South Australia
- ^ ISBN 9781607744917.
- ^ Polito, V. "Pollination and Fruit Set" (PDF). Retrieved 12 May 2015.