Planting Systems for Modern Olive Growing: Strengths and Weaknesses

Riccardo Lo Bianco, Primo Proietti, Luca Regni and Tiziano Caruso
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Riccardo Lo Bianco: Department of Agricultural, Food and Forest Sciences, University of Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Primo Proietti: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Perugia, 06121 Perugia, Italy
Luca Regni: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Perugia, 06121 Perugia, Italy
Tiziano Caruso: Department of Agricultural, Food and Forest Sciences, University of Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 11, issue 6, 1-18

Abstract: The objective of fully mechanizing olive harvesting has been pursued since the 1970s to cope with labor shortages and increasing production costs. Only in the last twenty years, after adopting super-intensive planting systems and developing appropriate straddle machines, a solution seems to have been found. The spread of super-intensive plantings, however, raises serious environmental and social concerns, mainly because of the small number of cultivars that are currently used (basically 2), compared to over 100 cultivars today cultivated on a large scale across the world. Olive growing, indeed, insists on over 11 million hectares. Despite its being located mostly in the Mediterranean countries, the numerous olive growing districts are characterized by deep differences in climate and soil and in the frequency and nature of environmental stress. To date, the olive has coped with biotic and abiotic stress thanks to the great cultivar diversity. Pending that new technologies supporting plant breeding will provide a wider number of cultivars suitable for super-intensive systems, in the short term, new growing models must be developed. New olive orchards will need to exploit cultivars currently present in various olive-growing areas and favor increasing productions that are environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable. As in fruit growing, we should focus on “pedestrian olive orchards”, based on trees with small canopies and whose top can be easily reached by people from the ground and by machines (from the side of the top) that can carry out, in a targeted way, pesticide treatments, pruning and harvesting.

Keywords: light interception; Olea europaea; pedestrian orchard; super-intensive planting system; training form (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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