SPRING, TIME TO (RE)BLOOM!

Learn with Bonamini, from us EVOO experts to you EVOO lovers
Many different and small curiosities on the olive tree world.

The perfect time of blooming is getting closer and closer and this is the time when plants show their maximum expression of beauty.
But, in nature, the real meaning is actually very much more deep.
The flowers represent the survival of the species; and these first times (and the next few months) are the perfect for blooming.

As you can tell from the example of picture 1, there are many little flowers on those branches and little by little they will open.
If the production is a good and prosperous one, we will only need the 2-3% of the flowers to set, getting the chance to become olives, after the fecundation.
When we talk about olive trees, where the pollination happens thanks to the wind, the nature gives the possibility to bloom a lot of flowers, so in that way there will be more probability of “meeting” between the male and female’s organs.

However it’s a luck that the pollination is only around 3%, otherwise if it were more, in only one harvest, thanks to the fact of producing so many olives, the tree would finish all its energies, getting always closer to its death.
There are more causes that makes this pollination’s process a lot harder: rain, humidity, backs to cold weather or hot wind… factors which are only obstacles to the movement of the pollen.

The parts of the tree that produce flowers are the two years old branches, which are exposed to sunlight and that are still a little weak; in the meantime, the younger and stronger ones express themselves producing what it’s called “gemme a legno”, aka buds that only produce leaves or sprouts.
The production could also happen every other year; that’s a good thing because if in only one harvest the tree produce both olives and fertile branches for the next harvest, so of course the plants would have to give up to something.
And that’s why: it could limited the production of olives or the one of fertile branches for the next harvest.

In conclusion: is it risky to make production previsions only observing the quantity of flowers that’s on the tree?
The answer is one and only… Yes, it’s risky, because there’s always time for big changes.