The week that is closing has recorded a sharp drop in temperatures and this drop in temperatures, according to weather forecasts, will still last for about ten days, with peaks that could remain a few degrees below 0.
This could cause damage to the olive trees, particularly to the green tissues, such as the leaves or worse the branches of a year, the very ones that will lead to the production of olives in this 2023. There are also cases of pruning carried out in December and January where the wounds have not yet healed and the effects of low temperatures will be more evident, because the cold penetrates more easily into the tissues injured by the cuts. To this we could also add that, as far as rainfall is concerned, the forecasts are not at all favorable and therefore it is not excluded that we may already find ourselves in March or April with plants that will be affected by water problems.
How to intervene?
The systems, on the part of the olive grower, can only be those of trying to reinvigorate the plant, so that it can better cope with conditions that are certainly not favorable. An immediate system is the administration of substances that invigorate it. For this purpose you have available products based on plant extracts, as the biostimulants, rich in substances and materials which, if applied to the plant, have the ability to modify physiological processes, improving the response to stress. These products which can be based on or mixed with wood distillates, glycine betaine, also combined with microelements, such as copper, zinc, calcium, which perform both preventive and curative action; that is to say, they help the plant to recover after a period of cold or drought fatigue.
The curative aspect is important because, at times, climatic conditions change quickly and do not allow preventive treatments to be implemented.
Here, in these situations, also become useful i products with healing effects, which act on the plant by improving its ability to synthesize useful substances, mainly the vegetable proteins, which give it the ability to better tolerate cold and drought.
Among these products we find the seaweed extracts, which are able to help plants bear the cold and resist water shortages. Then the protein hydrolysates, substances containing a mixture of amino acids and soluble peptides, which also represent a category of biostimulants.
The protein sources from which they derive can be of animal or vegetable origin, which have different characteristics, depending on the origin of the material itself. But be careful, each biostimulant or tonic, which contains algae extracts, humic acids or protein hydrolysates, has very specific actions and requires different dosages and application methods which must be carefully evaluated, even with the help of a technician.
AIPO Director
Interregional Association
Olive producers
