How olives are harvested at Trigono-Lamda
The 2008 olive harvest at the Lamda and Delta groves was a model of efficiency and a great deal of fun.
With a strong team, headed by a professional involved in the complete process from grove ownership, maintenance, olive oil production, testing and export; the harvest from 130 trees was completed in two days. Eating olives can be picked by hand in October. Four kalamata Olive trees at Lamda grove provide sufficent large, black olives for domestic use. They are processed in brine.
Olive Oil yields and quality
The main Trigono-Lamda Crop is produced at the Lamda and Delta groves about 5 kilometres inland from Methoni. Trigono grove yields a poorer quality oil from its 10 trees and the lemon Grove has 5 productive trees. There are "wild" trees at the Lemon Grove and Petra which it may be possible to obtain crops from. Trres at lamda and Delta are pruned to provide a main crop on alternate years, making it easier to manage from a distance, though bad weather may still ruin a good crop.
Preparation prior to harvesting
In order to achieve a good harvest easily, the trees should be maintained by pruning in Spring, removal of small growths on the inner branches and the tree trunk, strimming or clearing round the base of the tree and ensuring there are no dead branches or other obstacles that will tear the nets.
Preparing and cutting
Nets are spread beneath the trees - a job for two people! The nets are handled carefully and are lain around the tree, overlapping to prevent olives from escaping onto the ground during collection. Branches with a diameter larger than about 3 cm are then cut from the tree but it should be noted that this is a skilled job: only branches of the correct size and position should be cut as the tree needs to remain balanced. Skilled cutting at harvest time can save pruning later. A chain saw is used at the main Trigono groves but Trigono olives are sometimes harvested using a hand saw, a much quieter process!
Beating the Olives
An olive beating machine is used to remove olives from the cut branches, straight into sacks. This is a noisy process and leaves also get into the sacks. The alternative, but much slower process, is to beat olives off with a stick. There are different types of olive machine and operation needs care because olives can fly off in all directions. Olives on young branches that have not been cut from the tree are beaten off with a stick, enabling the branch to remain on the tree to develop and produce more olives.
Gathering the olives
Once the skilled members of the team have moved with their cutting and beating machinery to a new tree, other workers gather olives that have fallen into the nets. The job is done carefully as olives are heavy and good nets are relatively expensive. Olives that have fallen onto the nets are scooped into Small cans or buckets and put into scaks. Each sack weighs up to 40 kilos. The sacks are tied with string, labelled with the owner's name and left to be picked up by a collection crew.
Transport to the factory
The crew may be the harvesters or owner, in which case it is great fun to ride on the tractor, knowing that the hard work is over and the harvest safely gathered. For those without transport, a community- hired collection service may be available. Each user will pay a small fee for collection, but this is an efficient operation and preferable to struggling with heavy sacks!
At the olive factory, the sacks are stacked neatly on pallets, each batch separately to await processing. Usually processing will be quite quickly, but if there is a good harvest throughout the area, there may be a delay. Processing is quicker than ten years ago, anout an hour within the processor, rather than 2 hours.