Pruning Picual olive groves

A few days ago we attended a pruning course conducted by Rafael Navarro (a great expert in the world of olive growing) in our olive grove. It was a very interesting day that has allowed to us to develop a methodology to prune our Picual olive grove. One of the initial things to keep in mind is that the olive variety determines the pruning to be carried out: the Picual variety wants to remove the fat branches and not the thin ones. With other varieties like Manzanillo or even Arbequina, for example, where the olive tree asks for just the opposite. 

In our video you have more details of what you need to know when pruning a Picual olive tree. Here are the main steps to follow: 

• Fix the cross between waist and chest.    
• The cross consists of two opposite branches or three at the most. These branches (life branches) must have angles of 45° to 60°. Therefore, horizontal branches will be branches that will be removed, also called death branches. 
• Note also the parallel branches (flats). If we see that there are parallel branches in the same orientation, some of them should be removed. 
• The aim is to make room for the life branches to grow. If any branch is crossed, it is a candidate for a death branch. 
• Pruning should not be too aggressive so that the olive tree does not show any major damage. Aggressive pruning can lead to massive generation of branches in the lower zone and branches that grow vertically. 
• The lower thin branch with large leaves (female branches) should not be removed as this is where most of the olives are produced. Candidate branches to be removed during pruning are the high branches with small leaves (male branches) as these will not produce olives. 
• North-facing branches are also candidates for death branches. In this way we force the olive tree to regenerate in that part of the tree where it has less light. 
• The pruning of the Picual olive grove is normally done with a chainsaw and not with scissors, as the aim is to remove thick branches. 

Finally, we would like to list the tools used. Every job needs the right tool to be performed quickly and comfortably. On this occasion we have used the tools that Agriman has sent us, which are as follows: 

• Electric shears Infaco F3020 Medium. 
• Husqvarna T525 Professional chainsaw. 

We have really enjoyed working with the F3020M electric shears as they offer total comfort when cutting branches. When you want to cut thicker branches, a small and light saw like the one we have used provides excellent manoeuvrability... pruning is very easy to do without getting tired and it is even a fun job.

Versión en español.

Olive grove. Crushing of pruning cuttings

As we commented in one of our post of last month, one of the tasks that we carried out in the olive grove over these last months has been the pruning, both on young olive trees and on those we have in full production. These pruning tasks on the olive trees in production are usually done every year, although one year we practice an aggressive pruning and the following year a much lighter pruning. This year we have not made a very aggressive pruning and therefore we have not gathered excessive amount of pruning cuttings. On the young olive trees we prune every year and the objective is very different, since its aim is to form the tree without removing too many leaves because you can't decompensate the relation leaf-root. On large olive trees, when pruning is done, we think it is best to cut with a chainsaw, so imagine the size of pruning cuttings that are usually generated.

In December we bought a second-hand iD-David crushing machine. The truth is that we had been looking for a crushing machine for months and we quite liked this one (iD-David is a very specialized Spanish company in machinery for woody crops). We bought it in Talleres Marsemar (Villarrobledo - Albacete) and we have used it a lot (both for crushing olive and almond tree pruning cuttings). We had a very good feeling when we worked with it. The crushing machine is the iD-David TD-SO and it requires a tractor of at least 120 HP as it needs power when starting... we use it with our Agrotron M600 (130 HP) and the tractor works really fine at 1,700 r.p.m. of engine and 490 r.p.m. of PTO...  the crushing machine suffers a lot when many wood cuttings come in, especially wood of almond.

The aim of crushing the branches is to be able to incorporate these pruning remains into the soil because the pieces of wood end up decomposing and being incorporated into the soil as organic matter. We think this could be a very good choice for the olive grove and almond trees. Moreover, in Andalusia, the crushing of branches has been done for many years and the results are very positive.

Versión en español.