Page 67 - SA Fruit Journal VOLUME 14

lets. In order to provide the necessary sites for the following year’s flowers, shoot growth needs to be of sufficient length at this time. This can only happen under a regime of good orchard management.Smaller cuts done at the right time in the growing season will eliminate alternate bear- ing to a large extent, while large pruning cuts into old wood especially if done after har- vest, stimulate vigorous unproductive shoot growth.Before a heavy bloom of an “on-year”, shoot growth should be encouraged as early as possible in spring, while a portion of dense flowering trusses should be removed. In ta- ble olive production, it is important to ob- tain high yields of large sized fruit regularlyevery year. In order to obtain regular crop- ping there must be sufficient shoot growth during spring to serve as flowering sites for the following year. These bearers should be distributed over the entire tree and must not be excessively vigorous.A certain number of fruit of optimum size can be borne on a year old shoot of a spe- cific ideal length. By managing the number of such shoots on each central leader, yield, fruit quality and ripening uniformity can be more predictable. Since individual fruit is currently harvested by hand, it is worthwhile giving much more attention to optimising fruit load and so reduce harvesting cost and effort. Small fruit complicates the harvest- ing of premium priced larger fruit, they arelikely to soften or become infected by fungal diseases before they size up and have to be diverted to the oil mill. Harvesting such fruit individually by hand is most uneconomical. It is far more prudent to manage crop load by managing shoot growth.ConclusionThe South African olive industry is very small compared to that in the rest of the world, but it is built on sound principles, modern tech- nology and good infrastructure. Technology should be developed further to allow increas- ing competitiveness and growth in the in- dustry in order that South Africa reaches its potential of becoming a significant player on the world olive stage.TEGNOLOGIE 64 FEB | MAART 2015