Irrigation on the Olive Groves
As for all who work with agricultural products, weather has been at the forefront of our minds over recent years. Very hot and dry summers have been hard on olive growers, reducing yields and causing worldwide prices of olive oil to skyrocket, particularly the price of commercial blended oil. Despite this, many of our producers are working to adapt to these changes in weather patterns to ensure the continued survival of their farms and their oil production. Charles and Issy spoke to Fadrique of Marques de Valdueza and Marina Colonna about this.
F: Last year the weather was very hot so the trees were stressed and the new growth was stunted. As many olives grow on the second-year growth there will not be a big harvest this year. It will be an average, medium harvest. And that is something that will be happening in the whole of Spain even though it has rained very nicely [so far this year]. This is good for the current olives as they will grow more, but it will be even better for next year’s harvest because the branches will be stronger and therefore there will be more space for olives.
MC: For us, we had very good flowering, but then something happened, I don’t know what, and the flowers didn’t set into olives. Some producers in Puglia I have spoken to have predicted that the harvest might be at about 50%. But now, the olives that we have are very happy as we had a very heavy storm for the last two days.
CC: Are there any differences in varieties of olives that can cope with the drought and the heat better?
F: The olives that we have are all adapted singularly to our weather, I wouldn’t say there is a big difference from what I know, I haven’t heard that any one variety is adapted better to heat. But I do think there are varieties that have adapted better to lack of water, more than heat.
MC: Oh, yes, absolutely. For example, the varieties of the Molise like Leccino and Coratina don’t need water. Peranzana only needs a little while FS17 needs water all the time. That is a big drag!
F: The Morisca olive that we have is rather special. The Morisca has a big difference between one year and another…. so, one year is good, another year is bad, and that happens a lot with Morisca, even though they have irrigation. With irrigation you can normally have more average harvests year to year than without irrigation.
IC: Do you have to constantly irrigate? Do you ever worry that you start and then there is not enough water to continue?
F: Well, these past two years, we did have problems. We get the irrigation from the local river and the river was very low. At certain times of the year everyone is getting water from the river to irrigate. If it is low and it doesn’t rain, we have problems, and you get some restrictions in the amount of water you can use. We made an investment to build a big pond by an irrigation canal which is always full.
M: Our two lakes are now half full. We also have drainage ditches that collect rainwater. The water is then pumped with an electric pump into a basin, and from there it is sent to the olive groves. I think we will have enough water this year, partly because some of our trees can survive happily without irrigation.
F: The last two years we had to take some decisions and we decided to irrigate less the vineyards in order to keep water for the olive groves, but then we had to reduce the irrigation of the olive grove also. There were many places in Spain where they were not allowed to irrigate at all. So, by priority they allow you to irrigate long term agricultural products like trees, olive oil or others. If it is an annual agricultural product, for example wheat, in some places they say ‘ok, you cannot irrigate’. But they will not say that for olive trees, which are a long-term investment.