Modelli d'impianto, forme di allevamento e criteri di potatura per la nuova olivicoltura

Realizzato nell'ambito del progetto "Ricerca ed Innovazione per l’Olivicoltura Meridionale", finanziato dal MiPAAFThe olive growing has usually been practiced in shallow and low fertile soils due to the frugality and rusticity of this tree. Low planting density orchards, based on large-sized, free-shaped canopy trees were traditionally developed to stand such peculiar agronomical conditions; this represented the only sustainable orchard model on which, for centuries, has been developed the Italian olive oil industry. In recent times, the promotion of the Mediterranean diet as an healthy eating plan, based on the use of flavorful extravergin olive oil, largely contributed to increase worldwide interest on this peculiar ingredient of Mediterranean cooking style. In order to promptly satisfy the increased oil demand in the international market, new planting models have been projected and tested for the new olive oil industry, keeping sustainable the cost of production. Among those, at the beginning of the 2000’, Super High Density (SHD) hedgerow (1500-2500 trees/ha) resulted to fit, more than others, the above mentioned requirements for the developing olive oil industry in new growing countries. traditional olive orchards is low, alternate and production costs are too high, new orchards Unfortunately, few cultivars are suitable to SHD hedgerow system and these foreign cultivars do not fit the Italian olive oil industry, traditionally based on many local cultivars, producing olive oils of unique flavors and taste. Since the productivity of models should be adopted to make the Italian olive industry economically sound. Therefore, more attention has to be deserved to orchard efficiency, early bearing, constant production, high oil accumulation in the fruit and to the feasibility of the harvest mechanization. Particularly, it is important to consider the olive orchard light use efficiency (light to dry matter), carbon acquisition and distribution to the fruits (harvest index) when choosing new plantation systems. Furthermore, harvest mechanization efficiency has to be increased and tree damages have to be reduced in order to avoid excessive cost of production. Since harvester machines mainly work on the basis of two models, “discontinuous”/“continuous”, planting density, tree space, training system and pruning criteria should be adapted to fit the harvesters requirements