A SPECIAL GROWERS’ REPORT OF AG ALERT ® CALIFORNIA Trees & Vines Table olive growers can cut cost with mechanization
By Robyn Rominger Changes in table-olive production practices are boost- ing yields and the bottom line for California growers through mechanization and improved harvest efficiency. “We’re trying to reduce costs,” said olive grower Dennis Burreson of Orland, who serves as vice president of field operations and industry affairs for Tracy-based Musco Family Olive Co., one of two major table-olive processors left in the state. Burreson uses mechanical pruning and harvesting to cut labor costs. “That’s what this whole concept is about— being able to eliminate the picking labor,” he said. “Also, the mechanical pruning—the hedging and the skirting—does a lot to eliminate the pruning labor.” California’s table-olive production has shrunk through the years. Twenty-five years ago, some 35,300 bearing acres produced table olives, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Last year, state bearing acreage stood at 12,400. Burreson said most of the state’s table olives are still hand-picked, with an estimated 1,000 acres using me- chanical harvesting. “The future—and that’s what the modern acreage is about—will be transitioning to mechanically harvested instead of hand-harvested,” he said. Hand-harvesting, which can be 50% to 60% of a grow- er’s revenue, has become “cost-prohibitive,” he added. Mechanization can reduce labor costs by nearly 67%, Burreson estimated. “That’s a big difference,” he said. State table-olive acreage continues to decline due to sev- eral factors, including labor shortages, higher production costs, competition from imports, including Greece, Italy and Spain, and farmers planting more profitable crops such as tree nuts. As a result, growers in recent years have slowly begun to pivot to higher-density plantings of table-olive trees, which can be mechanically pruned and harvested. Whereas more traditional table-olive orchards are plant- ed with about 80 trees per acre, the modern higher-density plantings accommodate 242 trees per acre, Burreson said. “You’re getting three times as many trees per acre, and now you’re getting greater yields, and you’re getting them cheaper,” he added. Burreson has some trees that are 100 years old that need to be hand-harvested because their trunks are too large for the tree-shakers. His son Heath, a second-generation farmer at Burreson Orchards in Glenn County, manages the modern table-olive acreage, which includes trees that are mechanically harvested beginning at 5 years old. Becky Wheeler-Dykes, University of California Cooperative Extension farm advisor in Glenn, Tehama and Colusa counties, said many table-olive operations are small family farms with 5 to 60 acres, most of which are hand-harvested. Traditional table-olive varieties include Manzanillo and Sevillano. Wheeler-Dykes said all modern orchards are planted to Manzanillo olives. In such a system, after the trees are planted with uniform spacing, they are typically shaped See OLIVES, Page 7
Glenn County farmer Dennis Burreson, vice president of field operations for Musco Family Olive Co., left, inspects an orchard of table-olive trees with son Heath Burreson. 6 Ag Alert June 26, 2024
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