If you are planting a new olive orchard, geographic considerations are the first and most important factor to understand.

The fruit is setting and the olive crop looks promising.

It is hard to compete with Super High Density olive oil producers. Smaller producers need to distinguish their olive oil.

Super High Density farming key to the success of domestic olive oil production.

This is the time of year when a lot of people with a few landscape trees or hobby orchardists see a crop ripening and decide to try to make oil with their fruit. Frequently tree owners are unfamiliar with the existence of the olive fly, the effects of the fly on the quality of olive oil, and how to identify olive fly damage to fruit.

Last week I was out on a small consulting project that has been particularly rewarding. My client wanted to be involved in agriculture on a hobby level.

It is an interesting time in the orchard right now as we monitor the trees for what we can expect for a crop. The rumor is that the crop may be quite light statewide which is not good news given the rapidly growing popularity of Californian olive oil and the price hikes and shortages we've been seeing the last few years.

There is a lot of literature out there on the right way to do things in this industry whether it is planting, pruning, harvesting, milling, storage, or any of a number of other aspects of the business.