Pruning olive tree: experience, knowledge and a lot of love for the trees

Over 1,200 organic olive trees in the farm Sassolive want to be cherished and cared for every year to develop well and bring a rich harvest. In good years, that’s about 2,000 liters of organic olive oil. The sequence is given every year: Pruning in January/February, fertilizing in March April, protecting in summer and harvesting from October 1. And hope for rain, especially in December and January, because in this period the olive trees form their inflorescences. Then, when there is too little water, fewer flowers are formed, and the whole season is almost decided in terms of harvest.

During the year, olive trees need relatively little water compared to other trees. But completely without water, as in 2022 lead to the fact that the trees drop the olives because they can not “bring them through”.

Pruning olive trees for agriculture is very different from pruning as an ornamental plant, is much more difficult and requires more experience. The point is that at the end of the year, the tree produces many ripe fruits that are of uniform quality. Ideally, the olive tree is grown so that it does not grow too high, so that the olives can be harvested better, so about 3 to 4 meters.

When olive trees grow too tall (up to 6 meters) can be radically shortened, leaving almost only the main trunk with small shoots. After a few weeks, new shoots are formed, of which you leave 3 to 4. which then become supporting branches again.

When pruning annually, make sure that the olive tree forms about 4-5 evenly spaced side branches that should grow spreading, than in width. Because it must necessarily get a lot of light into the interior of the crown. The main shoot is cut. The five main branches are halved to build up the crown. As a result, they continue to branch out.

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Pruning olive tree – a matter of light

As soon as the olive tree gets the desired shape, it is important to preserve the crown as translucent as possible and to ensure a regular re-shoot. Olive trees only carry on one-year-old wood – i.e. on shoots that were created in the previous year. Therefore, once a year the old shoots, which do not carry much, as well as of course the dead wood must be removed. And the branches of the crown are trimmed, which prevent enough light from falling to the lower branches.

Prune the olive treeTo ensure that the olive tree continues to develop new shoots, the branches should be pruned slightly each year and any shoots that did not bear the previous year should be removed. In addition, when pruning olive tree need to remove all new shoots that grow inside the crown. Thus, an olive tree can expel new every year and produce many fruits.

For us as organic farmers, the care of the trees is also particularly complex, because we never work with substances that do not come directly from nature. This is our lot – but we love our work above all pruning the olive tree. Here you can make sponsorships with our trees.