Reading our publication, you will know how many kilos of olives an olive tree produce in the different growing conditions.
An olive tree can produce 0, 15, 50, 75, 100… kilos of olives depending on the medium and the care applied. Up to 850 kg of picual olives that came to produce the centenary olive tree of Fuentebuena.
Factors that influence olive production
The kilos of olive and liters of oil produced by the olive tree are conditioned by the climate, soil quality, presence of pests, care performed, olive variety, planting density, etc.
Plantation framework
The kilos that an olive tree can produce depend on the size and space it has.
It is not the same to have 50 olive trees in a traditional olive grove of dry land within a frame of 14×14 meters than the 2,000 olive trees that fit in a hectare of super high density olive grove at 1.25×4 meters.
Of course, the size and production per olive will be very superior in the traditional olive grove. However, the production per crop area is higher in the super high density olive grove.
In the case of the traditional olive grove, in good years the olive trees can exceed 100 kg and 5,000 kg of olives per hectare.
On the other hand, the super high density olive trees can produce more than 5 kg of olives in good years. What they do in total about 10,000 kg / ha of olive.
Another aspect to keep in mind is that the fat yield is superior in the traditional olive grove.
These productions can be reached in olive groves with good care and in areas suitable for olive cultivation.
Olive variety
The amount of kilos of olives that an olive tree can produce is also determined by the variety.
Productive varieties as Picual will be able to produce more kilos than Gordal Sevillana under similar conditions.
But to know the profitability of the olive tree, the oil yield is important. It is not the same to produce 100 kg of olives at 12% than 70 kg at 20%. The cost of harvesting and grinding 1 kg of olives does not depend on the yield.
Therefore, varieties with high yields tend to be more profitable for olive oil production.
Also the cultivated olive variety influences the win (tendency of the olive tree to alternate good and bad crops ).
Weather causes
Climatic conditions affect olive production.
Precipitation and temperature play an important role in production.
For example, high temperatures during the time of flowering of the olive tree, reduce the fertility of pollen and curd olives.
Annual rainfall exceeding 500mm increases the water reserves and the dry olive grove production.
Heat waves, when the olive bone is not hardened, they favor the olive tree throwing olives to the ground.
Shortage of water during September / October reduces the size and fatty yields of olives.
The climate of our area also affects the yield and production of olive trees. The olive tree is limited in its productive capacity in cold areas and with long winters.
Autumns with good rainfall and high temperatures, favor the production of olive oil.
Influence of climate on pests
Exposure to the climate of olive pests has a considerable influence on their control or multiplication.
High temperatures during the summer, help eliminate Prays from the olive tree and control the fly.
Summer rains favor the performance of the olive fly and can lead to a significant reduction in the harvest.
Land quality
Although with care we can improve their situation, the olive tree produces worse in poor, superficial and stony soils. For example, the shortage of essential minerals for curdling, such as Boron, can cause the olive tree to fail to produce until the deficiency is corrected.
Deep soils rich in assimilable minerals favor the productive capacity of the olive grove.
Flooded land or poorly sanitized, promote the presence of fungi and can produce root asphyxiation.
Land with previous crops of tobacco, cotton, sunflower… may contain Verticilium or nematodes harmful to the olive tree.
Care performed
For an olive tree to produce kilos of olives in quantity, it has to be well taken care of.
To do this, olive pruning must be balanced, favoring the progressive renewal of branches and maintaining the young olive trees.
Another important aspect is the application of a suitable fertilizer to our land, which is capable of providing deficit nutrients.
Watering the olive trees, regardless of the type of plantation, favors the growth and production of the branches.
Control olive pests and diseases such as Repilo, Cochinilla and Barrenillo.
So, how many kilos of olives does an olive tree produce?
Finally, I will make some examples of how many kilos of olives an olive tree produce in my cultivation area.
In my cultivation area (south of Ávila) most of the olive trees are centenarians. With a average annual rainfall that usually exceeds 1,000 liters, the olive tree hardly passes thirst in dry land. The sand-sandy soil, acid and quite washed by the rain, is not ideal for the olive tree, although a large part of the mineral deficiencies can be corrected with the subscriber. The planting framework is irregular, with many of the olive trees on terraces and about 150 trees per hectare.
The main cultivated variety is Manzanilla Cacereña, followed by Verdial de Badajoz and Cornicabra.
With well-attended olive trees, in years of loading you can obtain productions of more than 8.0000 kg / ha and yields of 12 to 15% in dry land.
Olive production per tree
In good years, the average production is about 50 kg per olive tree, equivalent to 6-8 kilos of olive oil.
During the years of unloading, production can drop to an average of 25-30 kg per tree.
The average includes 1,500 olive trees, some with the year changed. The most loaded olive trees can exceed 100 kg of olives. On the other hand, Manzanilla Cacereña olive trees with previous overload, barely manage to produce olives.
These socks can be obtained from a well-kept olive grove, the productions when no treatments are applied against the repile, the subscriber is deficient and the pruning is a disaster, they fall considerably.
How many kilos of oil can an olive produce?
The kilos of olives needed to produce a liter of oil vary according to the fat yield of the olives. As we saw in our post on olive yield, this fluctuates according to multiple factors (variety, weather, tree load, collection date…)
For example, for low yielding varieties and early harvesting, they may need more than 10 kilos of olives to produce a liter of olive oil.
On the other side of the scale, we have high yielding varieties and late harvesting, which with just 4 kilos of olives can produce 1 liter of oil.
In my town, depending on the year, between 6 and 8 kilos of olives are needed to produce 1 liter of olive oil. Equivalent to between 4 and 8 liters of oil on average per olive. Although our performance is quite poor compared to those that can be obtained in Andalucia (+ 50%).
For example, in Jaén with higher yields, they only need about 4 kg of olive to produce 1 liter of oil. So many olive trees can produce more than one box of olive oil.
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Warning
We have translated the information on our website from Spanish to English. Note that some words may have seen their meaning altered during their translation.