Olive harvesting is about to become a lot easier thanks to a new method developed by Israeli researchers at Ben-Gurion University.
"Olive harvesting is long, hard, highly expensive and destructive for the trees," explained head researcher Dr. Ze'ev Wiesman to Israel21c.com. "For traditional hand harvesting, an extremely high number of workers are required. This amount of intensive labor is not readily available in the developed countries producing the majority of olives in the world."
In the past thirty years, technological developments have enabled mechanical olive harvesting. Mechanical tree shakers have sped up the harvest but despite prolonged shaking tend to leave about a quarter of the olives on the tree.
Many experiments using hormones and other chemical agents to improve the efficacy of the mechanical olive harvesting have failed, due to high cost and the severe damage that some chemicals cause the trees.
The new product developed by Dr. Wiesman's team, with help from Israel’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, is based on nutrient crystals that are friendly to the tree and to the environment. A very low amount of hormonal component is integrated in the basic delivery components and they coating the nutrient crystals in a specially engineered technology.
The coated crystals are easily dissolved in water and sprayed on mature olives about ten days before harvesting. The bioactive materials of the product are slowly and continuously absorbed to the leaf and fruit tissues.
As a result, the olive’s connection to the tree is significantly reduced and falls easily when shaken, causing nearly all the ripe olives to fall when the tree is shaken.
The revolutionary product has been successfully tested over the course of the last five years in Spain, Italy, Turkey and Australia, according to Wiesman, as reported by Israel21c.com.
The product is in the final stages of formal registration in Spain and the EU carried out by Agro-Vant Ltd. (a start-up company established for commercialization of this development in cooperation with BGU).
"Right now," Wiesman says, "this product is the only one tested and is very close to approval for olive harvesting in Europe, which is responsible for producing about 85% of the world's olive yield."
"Olive harvesting is long, hard, highly expensive and destructive for the trees," explained head researcher Dr. Ze'ev Wiesman to Israel21c.com. "For traditional hand harvesting, an extremely high number of workers are required. This amount of intensive labor is not readily available in the developed countries producing the majority of olives in the world."
In the past thirty years, technological developments have enabled mechanical olive harvesting. Mechanical tree shakers have sped up the harvest but despite prolonged shaking tend to leave about a quarter of the olives on the tree.
Many experiments using hormones and other chemical agents to improve the efficacy of the mechanical olive harvesting have failed, due to high cost and the severe damage that some chemicals cause the trees.
The new product developed by Dr. Wiesman's team, with help from Israel’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, is based on nutrient crystals that are friendly to the tree and to the environment. A very low amount of hormonal component is integrated in the basic delivery components and they coating the nutrient crystals in a specially engineered technology.
The coated crystals are easily dissolved in water and sprayed on mature olives about ten days before harvesting. The bioactive materials of the product are slowly and continuously absorbed to the leaf and fruit tissues.
As a result, the olive’s connection to the tree is significantly reduced and falls easily when shaken, causing nearly all the ripe olives to fall when the tree is shaken.
The revolutionary product has been successfully tested over the course of the last five years in Spain, Italy, Turkey and Australia, according to Wiesman, as reported by Israel21c.com.
The product is in the final stages of formal registration in Spain and the EU carried out by Agro-Vant Ltd. (a start-up company established for commercialization of this development in cooperation with BGU).
"Right now," Wiesman says, "this product is the only one tested and is very close to approval for olive harvesting in Europe, which is responsible for producing about 85% of the world's olive yield."