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| [image] Olea europaea (Olive), Lisboa, Portugal | ||||||||||||||
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| Olea europaea L. |
The Olive (Olea europaea) is a Species of small Tree in the family Oleaceae, native to coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean region, from Syria and the maritime parts of Asia Minor. It is also thought to be indigenous in Greece. Olive trees shows a marked preference for calcareous soils, flourishing best on Limestone slopes and crags, and coastal climate conditions.
The Wild Olive is a small, straggly tree or shrub to 8-15 m tall with thorny branches. The leaves are opposite, oblong pointed, 4-10 cm long and 1-3 cm broad, dark greyish-green above and pale with whitish scales below. The small white flowers, with four-cleft calyx and corolla, two stamens and bifid stigma, are borne generally on the last year's wood, in racemes springing from the axils of the leaves. The Fruit is a small Drupe 1-2 cm long, thinner-fleshed and smaller in wild plants than in orchard cultivars.
It is not known when olives were first cultivated for harvest. Among the earliest evidence for the domestication of olives comes from the Chalcolithic Period archaeological site of Teleilat Ghassul in what is today modern Jordan.
The plant and its products are frequently referred to in the Bible and by the earliest poets. The ancient agriculturists believed that the Olive would not succeed if planted more than a short distance from the sea; Theophrastus gives 300 stadia (55.6 km) as the limit). Modern experience does not always confirm this, and, though showing a preference for the coast, it has long been grown further inland in some areas with suitable climates, particularly in the southwestern Mediterranean (Iberia, northwest Africa) where winters are less severe.
Olives are now culivated in many regions of the world such as Australia, New Zealand, and California. Considerable research has been done to support the health benefits of eating olives and olive oil (see external links below for research results).
There are thousands of cultivars of the Olive. In Italy alone at least three hundred cultivars have been enumerated, but only a few are grown to a large extent. The main Italian cultivars are 'Leccino', 'Frantoio' and 'Carolea'. None of these can be safely identified with ancient descriptions, though it is not unlikely that some of the narrow-leaved cultivars that are most esteemed may be descendants of the Licinian olive. The broad-leaved olive trees of Portugal and Spain bear a larger fruit, but the edible portion (the Drupe) has a more bitter flavour and the oil is of poorer quality. These Iberian olives are usually cured and eaten, often after being pitted, stuffed (with pickled Pimento, Onion, or other garnishes) and jarred in fresh brine.
Some particularly important cultivars of olive include:
The olive is propagated in various ways, but cuttings or layers are generally preferred; the tree roots easily in favourable soil and throws up suckers from the stump when cut down. Branches of various thickness are cut into lengths of about 1 m and planted deeply in manured ground, soon vegetate; shorter pieces are sometimes laid horizontally in shallow trenches, when, covered with a few centimetres of soil, they rapidly throw up sucker-like shoots. In Greece, grafting the cultivated tree on the wild form is a common practice. In Italy, embryonic buds, which form small swellings on the stems, are carefully excised and planted beneath the surface, where they grow readily, their buds soon forming a vigorous shoot.
Occasionally the larger boughs are marched, and young trees thus soon obtained. The olive is also sometimes raised from seed, the oily pericarp being first softened by slight rotting, or soaking in hot water or in an alkaline solution, to facilitate Germination.
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. Dwarf cultivars, very prolific and with green fruit, which are popular in America, produce a crop two or three seasons after planting. The ordinary kinds do not become profitable to the grower until from five to seven years after the cuttings are placed in the olive-ground. The crop from old trees is sometimes enormous, but they seldom bear well two years in succession, and in many instances a large harvest can only be reckoned upon every sixth or seventh season.
A calcareous soil, however dry or poor, seems best adapted to its healthy development, though the tree will grow in any light soil, and even on clay if well drained; but, as remarked by Pliny, the plant is more liable to disease on rich soils, and the oil is inferior to the produce of the poorer and more rocky ground.
The amount of oil contained in the fruit differs much in the various sorts; the pericarp usually yields from 60 to 70%.