21 March 2019

Implantation irrigation

Last week we finished one of the main objectives that we set ourselves a few years ago: to finish planting all the olive trees we had in mind. In total about 2,500 olive trees in 14ha to a plantation framework of 7x7 meters and 8x8 meters. Here you can see some articles that we have published about different ways of planting that we have used: traditional method and using GPS.

Once the last planting phase was finished (around 1,000 olive trees), we performed the implantation irrigation. It is an irrigation that more than for the hydric needs in itself, it is really useful for the mechanical action of compaction and elimination of air in the subsoil helping the root to bind well to the soil. The dose of water we used was about 10 litres/olive tree. Perhaps a little low the amount of water used (an ideal dose would be about 40 litres/olive tree), but time constraints are often those that command. In this implantation irrigation we also take advantage to introduce phosphoric acid and humic acids that will undoubtedly help the main objective: not to lose any olive tree that has been planted and to have a rich soil around each olive.

The next task after the implantation irrigation is to harrow using the cultivator in order to cover the soil that has been wet in the irrigation and thus avoid evaporation that may occur by the high temperatures that we are suffering during these days and take advantage to remove the furrow that has created the planting machine and thus have the field leveled.

By the way, we were visited by the children of the house that are great fans of the olive tree and agricultural machinery in general... we spent a fantastic morning with them. In addition, another great moment for the memory was the lunch that we tasted in the Restaurant El Bodegón together with the personnel of the company "Los Mudis" (from Las Pedroñeras - Cuenca) agricultural services that have made us all the plantation of the olive tree with a great professionalism. Without a doubt, a very amusing working day!

Versión en español.

06 March 2019

Tecnovid, Oleotec, Enomaq, Oleomaq and e-Beer

The wine, olive oil and brewing sectors met last week in Zaragoza to hold five fairs together. A total of 1,286 exhibitors (552 are foreign) displayed their entire offer in the more than 56,000 square metres of the six pavilions used at the Zaragoza Exhibition Centre.
  • Tecnovid: 11th International Vine Growing Techniques and Equipment Show
  • Oleotec: 7th International Olive-Growing Techniques and Equipment Show
  • Enomaq: 22nd International Show of Winery and Bottling Machinery and Equipment
  • Oleomaq: 7th International Olive Oil Mill Machinery, Equipment and Packing Show
  • e-Beer: 1st International Show of Machinery and Equipment for the Brewing Industry
It was the first time we visited the fair and we liked it very much, although we expected more variety in the machinery specialized in olive groves, which is also our great interest. In fact, the fair focused more on viticulture than on olives. In any case, a visit to the fair is highly recommended.

With respect to Tecnovid and Oleotec, the specialized machinery for vineyards and olive trees, pavilion 6 was quite well organized, being able to see a great repertoire of variety of agricultural machinery (mainly atomizers), highlighting the stands of New Holland, General Agrícola and Industrias David. New Holland had very good representation of all its machinery specialized in vineyards and olive trees (tractors and grape harvesters). General Agrícola had a great variety of atomizers, mulchers, etc... and Industrias David always call our attention how well finished their implements are. Also, other interesting stands were those of Ovlac, Gregoire, Gascón International, Niubo and Gil. On the other hand, we missed a lot of specialized machinery such as Same, Fendt or Arbos... we couldn't even see any shaker for the collection of olive trees.

The rest of the pavilions were dedicated to the other events held, where we could see a wide variety of machinery for wineries, mills, breweries, winemakers, beer producers, oenologists, etc. It is impressive the amount of variety that there is in all type of machinery of the sector... I think we saw more than 100 different bottlers, hundreds of bottles, different label formats, bottle crates, corks, stainless steel tanks, etc. It was also interesting to know all that.

Versión en español.