Kapiti Olives field walk - 21 April 2012

Allan - chairman of the Kapiti branch.

David and Helen kindly agreed to host yet another event at their grove. And what a lovely day for it too! Sunny with practically no wind, made the walk amongst the trees even more enjoyable.

I still remember my first visit to David's grove about a year ago, when I reported about how healthy and well David's trees look. Well, since then, David discovered (with the help of the Spanish visitors later last year) that his trees had some diseases, which for one, explained the leaf drop. David immediately started treatment and this year his trees are really in good shape.

After Allan gave some feedback on ONZ and the constitution, David shared some valuable information on grove management and also gave a rundown of what he did to fix the diseases on the trees. He spayed mainly with a mix of Dodine (a fungicide) and OliveMix (a spray fertiliser). Three applications (the maximum recommended frequency per year for Dodine) seem to have solved the biggest problems.

As usual, a good outing, very informative and we are slowly starting to recognise and know more people in the olive industry.

Some pics from the event:

Some members of the Kapiti branch at the Kapiti grove.

David showing what happens to a tree that was blown over.
He chopped off the top, pulled it upright, staked it, and it is already making new branches.

Another blown-over tree - two years later.

Kapiti Grove. David and Andreas in the front.

The inside of a recently pruned tree. Branches and suckers that grows towards the
inside of the tree are all taken out to allow light and air into the tree,
 and the "wounds" are treated with a fungicide paint.

ONZ Conference 2012

Saturday 24th March 2012

Sudima Airport Hotel, Auckland Proudly supported by GEA-Westfalia

'Let's Get it On!' is the theme for this years event and Gerry and I decided that we should attend the conference, especially since it included a workshop on table olives, our main focus.

So, off to Auckland we were on the Friday. It was a rainy morning as we left the swamp city for the seven-hour-plus drive to Auckland. It turned out to be a pleasant drive with no serious weather issues and we arrived around five at the Kiwi International Airport Hotel, about 2km from the venue.

The Sudima Airport Hotel played host to the conference and the Friday evening kicked-off with cocktails and mingling in the bar area, sponsored by GEA Westfalia. Andrew, the President of Olives NZ, quickly welcomed everybody, before the mingling started with drinks in hand. The Blues/Hurricanes Super 15 Rugby game was on in the background and we were very pleased that our team came through for a narrow one point victory! But a win is a win. :)

Saturday morning's proceedings started at nine with a welcome and opening talk by Andrew. The conference was well attended with around 95 attendees. Some of the talks included:

- Effects of Harvest Maturity on Extra Virgin Olive Oil Year 3

- Strategic Options for your Olive Grove (Own brand / Co-operative / Supplier of oil)

- Table Olives workshop (Table olive tasting and markets, pre-harvest, harvest, processing) 

- Marketing workshop

- Tasting & Blending workshop

Overall some very useful and informative talks and the afternoon's workshop on table olives was of particular interest to me. Simon Fields (from Salsi Pty Ltd, Australia) took us through a quick olive tasting course, before explaining the ins and outs of pickling olives. It almost frightened me to realise how little I know and what a long learning path still lies ahead of us. Not to mention the capital output that will be required.

After a full day of listening to some very knowledgable people, I am a little concerned that we might not altogether have planted the right varieties of olives. The J5 which I were to believe is a pickling olive, was mentioned to possibly be the "NZ Frantoio", which has a small fruit and is more suitable for oil. But yet another source says it is excellent for pickling. There are still some question marks around the J5, so I'm still hopeful that it will be okey for our purpose.

The SA Verdale also has a wee bit of a question mark over it's head, because the pips are fairly big and the fruit don't separate easily from the pip. On the positive side, the expert Simon, is very positive about the fact that the fruit is big, tastes great and is easy to process. That makes the rather large pips seem like a minor issue. Or not?

At the conference dinner later that evening, Andrew welcomed everyone, after which lovely food were served. Great to meet more growers and mingle before everybody retreated to their separate hotels.

On Sunday, an additional workshop was presented by various experts in the field - Processing to Oil - which were well attended by about 50 people. Gerry took some pictures, so we stayed for a bit before heading back to the hotel.

Congratulations and thanks to Gayle who must have put in a lot of effort to organise this event. I'm sure many sleepless nights forego the conference, but judging by all the positive comments and feedback from attendants, it was a very successful gathering.

Me, Kay & Charles Chinnaiyah (from Olea Estate).

Andrew Taylor with the ONZ Executive.

Simon Field testing our knowledge on table olives.

A wide variety of olives for the tasting.

Making notes, learning more about the tasting process.

Participants in the blending workshop.

The beautiful grove of Parkhill Olives.

A demonstration of shakers and pruners.

Olive oil tasting at Peka Peka - 13 November 2011

The Noble-Beasley's lovely home, with a view on Kapiti island.

This might come as a surprise, but I've never attended an olive oil tasting before. So I was very delighted when Allan (the new chairperson of the Kapiti branch) announced that Tricia and Rob of Noble Estate would host the event. Helen Walshaw led the tasting while Allan and David gave short talks on the ONZ developments and subs, as well as diseases and their control.

After a week of fairly miserable weather leading up to the event, were lucky enough to have a wonderful sunny day for the tasting, so the whole event took place outside in the beautiful surroundings of Noble Estate.

The tasting turned out a very informal affair and Helen kindly agreed to give Gerry and myself the rundown on how it is normally done. Everybody who presses oil (which is just about all the members, except for us :-}) brought a bottle of their oil for the tasting.

Dunking bits of bread (ciabatta?) in good quality oil and tasting it (which is different from how it is traditionally done), is a very pleasant experience. I thought it might be too oily, but not at all. It tasted absolutely divine!

We had a lovely lunch afterwards, courtesy of the branch and everybody who contributed salads.

Getting the formalities out of the way before the tasting. (l-r) Allan, Anne, Helen, David, Paul and Tricia.

The tasting table - interesting how the oils differ in taste and colour.

Gerry putting his newly acquired tasting skills to the test.
Is that a peppery aftertaste?

Olives New Zealand AGM and awards - 15 October 2011

A whole day of fun and events was planned, starting off with the AGM and lunch at Tatum Park. Thereafter we all went over to David and Helen's for presentations by two Spanish gentleman (organised by Goran Erdevicki from GEA): Juan Vilar and Javier Hidalgo - experts by all accounts on all things olive - followed by the fieldwalk in the Kapiti Olives grove (last year’s Olives New Zealand EVOO ‘Best in Show’ Award). The awards dinner was planned for the evening back at Tatum Park, followed by the semi-final WCR game between France and Wales.

Gerry and I decided to go for the morning and afternoon events only, as the dinner was another expense that we couldn't afford currently. We got to meet the chairperson of ONZ, Andrew Taylor, and a lot of other growers from various other areas. It is great to see so many enthusiastic people, passionate about the industry and trying to make things better for all. The presentations by the Spanish (both from GEA Westfalia) were quite informative, albeit focussed on Spain, which is much drier that NZ. Just to comprehend the scale at which they operate, is mind blowing. They also presented everybody with wonderful handouts (books on olives, victorinox knives, flash drives, notebooks, pens, etc.).

Afterwards we all headed outside for a walk amongst the olive trees of David and Helen. The good thing about having experts looking at your grove, is that they can immediately detect if anything could be wrong with the trees. Unfortunately (and fortunately) for David, they discovered that his trees have some mineral deficiencies as well as diseases. Apparently if the tips of the leaves turn brown, you need to up your nutrients in the form of potassium (if the soil is alcaline) or boron (if the soil is acidic). His trees also seemed to be pestered by peacock spot amongst others, and are losing their leaves at a rate. This will obviously effect flowering and fruit set. So, although David swore by his conviction never to use copper spray, it now turns out that he might just have to do that.

All in all a great outing, very informative and insightful. Pity we couldn't make the awards function as well. Some pics from the day:

AGM at Tatum Park, with David discussing some changes to the ONZ constitution.

Goran left and Javier from Spain.

Juan also from Spain.

Listening and learning at the Kapiti Olives grove field walk.

Attending these events provide excellent opportunities to learn more about olives.

David, Juan, Javier and another grower.

Can't remember what disease this is, but it looks like cigarette ash on the back of the leaves,
and it's a main cause for leaves to drop from the trees at an alarming rate.

Kapiti branch AGM 2011

David and Helen invited all the Kapiti branch members for drinks, eats and the Kapiti branch AGM at their place in Te Horo Beach. And what a beautiful place they have right on the beach.

We made the one hour drive on Sunday afternoon to arrive for the meeting at 16:00. Some 20 people were present and it was very nice to meet and chat with some other growers in our region.

The meeting got underway and things that were covered include the financial statements, subscriptions fees for Olives NZ as well as Kapiti branch memberships, the constitution, upcoming ONZ AGM and awards dinner for Olives NZ. Committee members for the Kapiti branch were elected for the new year, and I am happy to report that I now find myself on the committee, together with Allan Frazer (chairperson), Anne Barnett (secretary/treasurer), Lance Wiggins and David Walshaw.

I am looking forward to see what the next year will bring.

Kapiti field walk

Uncertain whether we should join the NZ Olive Association, Olives New Zealand, we decided to attend a field walk and pruning demonstration hosted by Kapiti Olives. Owners Dave and Helen Walshaw were kind to let us attend and see how it goes before we make our final decision.

Olives NZ seemed to be more directed towards the oil industry, which I immediately thought would not help me much, but soon realised that everything you can possibly learn about growing olives will be the same. It is still an olive tree, right?

So on 22 May we drove down to their Kapiti farm to meet other people from the industry. It was raining while driving there and since a big group of about 40 people were expected, Dave had to clear his shed to make room for discussions and mingling. After explaining what Olives NZ had to offer, it's history and budget, Dave went on to talk about harvesting and how they go about it. All of this is new to me, except for what I have read on the internet and in books thus far.

Keeping to the programme, rain and all (we're almost starting to get use to this :)!), we headed outside for a walk amongst the trees and Dave also let us squash a few olives at different stages of ripeness - some varieties ripen earlier than others - to feel the difference. Kapiti olives' trees seem to be in excellent condition. Beautiful trees and just walking amongst them must rate (at least for me) as a very memorable experience. They have a stature about them that is hard to explain. Dave quickly demonstrated a wee bit of pruning, before the rain really started to wrap things up.

Afterwards, drinks and snacks were served, courtesy of Anne (?), the treasurer of the Kapiti Regional Committee. More mingling and meeting people before driving home.

Some pics from the event:

Dave in the beige jacket giving a talk and Helen, his wife, on the far left of the picture.

Dave talking about the fruit and when to harvest.

I have to admit that I have never before had the opportunity the squash a fresh olive to pulp!

Graeme (ex-partner and friend of Kapiti olives), also an expert on olives, standing on the left in the back
with the navy jacket.

Dave inside the tree and me on the right trying to see what he's doing.

Taking out a big branch as well as some "water shoots"/suckers growing towards the middle of the tree. Pity about the rain though ... I would have loved to see and hear more in this regard.