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In Northern California's olive growing regions I've been noticing a trend towards tearing out old olive trees and replacing them with trees that are grown on tr

In Northern California's olive growing regions I've been noticing a trend towards tearing out old olive trees and replacing them with trees that are grown on trellises in the same fashion as grapes. This appears to be done to utilize the picking robots that were specialized for vineyards. It's interesting to think that pruning practices like espalier, coppicing and hedging could be brought back to utilize robotics efficiently for any number of fruiting trees and bushes. Kinda wish we got rid of timber fences and just put up hedges of fruit trees all in between houses, with roaming robots to tend to their production.

alecco 4y ago
That's weird. Most modern plantations use the "Super Intensive" method with specialized machines. https://invidious.fdn.fr/watch?v=4RnDldkqUb4 https://invidious.fdn.fr/watch?v=4RnDldkqUb4
- nanomonkey 4y ago
  The video displays exactly what I'm talking about though. The machinery is build around olive trees grown as hedges instead of the traditional tree shapes that requires shaking or ladders. Olives as trees don't require wires to grow on like grape vines, sorry if that was what you thought I was implying.
bergenty 4y ago
Is that really a trend? Because olive trees take decades to grow and at least 3 years to bear so I have a hard time believing they’re being ripped out and restarted.
- nanomonkey 4y ago
  I believe some of this is due to changes in what types of olives were considered desirable. I'm not an expert, but some of the green stuffing olives have been replaced with different varieties. Also there are pests and diseases that are taking over, so newer resistant varieties are valuable replacements. Three years is also not a terrible time period compared to other nut trees that are grown in the area, specially if harvesting can be improved to be less manual. Some of the trees that are being replaced are 80-100 years old, so the wood can be a valuable resource that will cover the costs.
jmrm 4y ago
Here in Spain we observe the same. Having dozens of harvesting olives manually or with the help of small machines were worthwhile while big olive harvesters were rare and salaries where lower, but now we have the opposite situation.

alecco 4y ago

That's weird. Most modern plantations use the "Super Intensive" method with specialized machines. https://invidious.fdn.fr/watch?v=4RnDldkqUb4 https://invidious.fdn.fr/watch?v=4RnDldkqUb4

nanomonkey 4y ago
The video displays exactly what I'm talking about though. The machinery is build around olive trees grown as hedges instead of the traditional tree shapes that requires shaking or ladders. Olives as trees don't require wires to grow on like grape vines, sorry if that was what you thought I was implying.

bergenty 4y ago

Is that really a trend? Because olive trees take decades to grow and at least 3 years to bear so I have a hard time believing they’re being ripped out and restarted.

nanomonkey 4y ago
I believe some of this is due to changes in what types of olives were considered desirable. I'm not an expert, but some of the green stuffing olives have been replaced with different varieties. Also there are pests and diseases that are taking over, so newer resistant varieties are valuable replacements. Three years is also not a terrible time period compared to other nut trees that are grown in the area, specially if harvesting can be improved to be less manual. Some of the trees that are being replaced are 80-100 years old, so the wood can be a valuable resource that will cover the costs.

jmrm 4y ago

Here in Spain we observe the same. Having dozens of harvesting olives manually or with the help of small machines were worthwhile while big olive harvesters were rare and salaries where lower, but now we have the opposite situation.