Abstract
Small producers confront specific challenges when they opt to produce high-quality olive fruit. Limited resources for investing in harvest machinery and manpower are the main reasons for continuing a traditional harvest method that puts the final product and its economic value at risk. This paper discusses the efficiency of an integrated harvest system as a possible solution to these specific challenges. The system is formed by a newly designed manual harvesting device and the use of a cooling room near the olive grove. Both systems were evaluated to assess their feasibility for optimum conditions before processing. The combined effect of the harvesting method and cold storage on the fruit characteristics (incidence of decay, skin color, weight loss, firmness, respiration, and ethylene production) was evaluated on three different varieties (‘Arbequina’, ‘Picual’ and ‘Verdial’) and four different storage times (0, 4, 8, and 14 days). The results indicate that the proposed harvesting method in combination with an appropriate cooling system offers an affordable alternative for obtaining fruit with the best physiological characteristics.
Highlights
While it is well-know that Spain stands out as the major producer of olive oil and table olives in the world, it is scarcely mentioned that more than three-quarters of this cultivated area of 2,5 x 106 ha consists of plots of less than 10 ha
Whereas in ‘Arbequina’ fruit the differences between the treatments R2S2 and the rest increased throughout this period
The differences in decay incidence in ‘Picual’ olives between R2S2 and the other treatments increased over the examined storage time
Summary
While it is well-know that Spain stands out as the major producer of olive oil and table olives in the world, it is scarcely mentioned that more than three-quarters of this cultivated area of 2,5 x 106 ha consists of plots of less than 10 ha Consejería de Agricultura, Pesca y Desarrollo Rural, 2015) This high degree of fragmentation occurs in Andalusia, where 60% of the national production is concentrated (Colombo and Villanueva, 2018). Evaluating the quality of the fruit is rapidly becoming standard procedure and experiments with automated assessment tools are under development (Puerto et al, 2015; Navarro Soto et al, 2018; Aguilera Puerto et al, 2019). The impact of this shift on the producer’s side is straightforward: a better quality means a better price. The necessity to optimize the harvest conditions are even more important regardless of whether they produce their own oil or, as is more often the case, they bring their olives to a private mill where they are processed as a custom-made batch
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