Olive harvesting: when is it done and how?
On this occasion we are talking about one of the most important moments in the olive grove: the harvesting of the olives. These are days in which the fields are filled with collectors and the olives fall with verve of the trees to reach the mill as quickly as possible, where the extra virgin olive oil will be made. Do you want to know how the olive is collected in the Spanish olive groves? We talked about the time of harvesting the olives, the most popular collection methods and some of the curiosities about our Beloleum Premium Olive Oil.
When is the olive harvest?
The olive harvest in Spain is carried out Between the months of October and February, with temporary differences depending on the region, the climate and the variety of the olive.
At Beloleum we collect our olives at the earliest time: Arbequina variety the second week of October and in the Empeltre variety the first week of November. In any case, in the rest of Aragon and the Ebro Valley, the olive harvesting season runs from the second half of October to the first half of December for the Arbequina olive and from the first week of November until the month of January in the case of the IMPLERT.
And what time of day is the time of collection? In Beloleum, night pickup
One of the characteristics of the collection of olives destined to make Beloleum is that it is carried out at night, a particularity shared by some of the producers of premium olive oil, looking for the highest quality of the final product. As we harvest our harvest early, between October and November, the temperatures during the day can still be high, a heat that does not feel good to the fruit. for that, The freshness of the night in our olive groves in the Belchite countryside allows the olive to reach the oil mill in the best conditions., where the next step is grinding.
Between the collection and the grind (the olive grinding process) should not exceed 6 hours. In the case of beloleum, the olive only spends 2 hours in that interval.
Olive collection methods
At present, the characteristics of the farm and its olive trees mark the olive harvesting system, ranging from traditional milking and scalling to the most modern techniques, by mechanical means of vibration designed to not damage the olive tree.
milking
It is the most traditional way of collecting olives and implies that they detach from the tree By hand, one by one, hence its name. The olives are collected in carrycots that are later taken to the oil mill and are still carried out in family fields and small farms.
VAREO
It is another traditional method that consists of Give a stick to the olive branches so that the fruit falls, normally, on an inverted blanket or umbrella.
Mechanized olive harvesting
There are different Vibration methods which consist of shaking the branches or the trunk of the olive tree through the use of machinery. There’s also Branch and shaker vibrators that a person can carry and that allow them to reach more inaccessible places for the machinery. In some super-intensive productions, the called horse harvester. Other machines that can be used in fields with great mechanization are sweepers and vacuum cleaners.
Olive harvest with umbrella
To collect the fruit that falls more efficiently, log vibrators with an inverted umbrella reception surface have been developed.
Due to the characteristics of each variety, in Beloleum we collect the Arbequina olive with mechanical means and the empeltre bumping, with a more manual collection due to the three branches that characterize this tree. As an anecdote, in some farms they cut one of the branches when the olive tree is still young, so that a more mechanical collection can be carried out. This is not the case of Beloleum, where the olive trees with three branches are preserved.
Once the olive is collected, it is transferred to the oil mill, where the Elaboration of olive oil, with washing and grinding, crushing the olive until you achieve an initial paste.
Do you want to discover the taste of the EVOO that we make in our family mill? Discover Beloleum, our premium olive oil from Aragon!
Latest Posts on Olive Oil
Fasting olive oil: everything you need to know
5 gourmet homemade burger recipes
How to optimize olive nutrition?