Oregon Olive Trees™

Oregon Olives 

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Oregon Olives

Oregon Olive Oil

Oregon Olive Trees

Trees for Sale

Introduction

Planting

Growing

Cultivars

Frantoio (origin - Tuscany, Italy)

 

Uses: most consider this the premier olive tree for making extra virgin olive oil; also used for Greek-style table olives in brine.

 

Productivity: somewhat light bearing, especially when compared to precocious cultivars such as Leccino, but relatively constant bearing.  A small harvest is possible the year after planting, commercial crops in 6 - 8 years.  A self pollinating tree with good pollen for pollinating other cultivars; yield will increase some with cross pollination for which Pendolino is commonly used.

 

Fruit: medium in size amongst the classic oil types, clingstone with a flesh to pit ratio of around 5:1, medium oil content on fruit that may not reach sufficient maturity for a excellent single varietal olive oil in some years.  The oil is easily extracted, and prized for it's very fruity character.  When harvested late in a good year in Oregon it should make an excellent single varietal olive oil with balanced fruitiness, bitterness and pungency, with floral flavor notes of almond, green apple, fresh cut grass and artichokes.  Frantoio is the central building block of the famed "Tuscan" blended olive oils.

 

Tolerances: high to cold, wind and fog; medium to drought.  Adaptable to different growing circumstances with a medium height and vigor; with a bit of a dense "wild hairball" sort of growth characteristic.

 

Comments: California sources say Frantoio is sensitive to cold, but our clone appears to be amongst the best adapted of any cultivars to Oregon conditions.  Also note the comment from "Olive Oil" by Charles Quest-Ritson: "Frantoio is less successful and does not always transfer well to warmer latitudes, such as California, Australia and Argentina."

 

Since Frantoio appears to be the best adapted to Pacific Northwest conditions (indeed all the way up into British Columbia) it is highly recommended for mass plantings where substantial investments are being made.  Also, it works especially well for "urban homesteaders" who want just one tree since it will produce without cross fertilization.

 

Within Tuscany, there are regional variations on the proportion of a grove that are planted to Frantoio: near Lucca, Leccino trees typically form half the grove; near Chianti, Frantoio assumes the same proportion of the groves. 

 

As much as anything else, it is the color that the olives are picked at that determine the character of the olive oil.  In 2008 (the coolest growing season here of any year in the past 10), the olives were still a bit too green, and so were picked and used for table olives.  Kathy’s Grove: 11/15/08:

Frantoio tends to be a bit of a dense, crazy growing tree (more so than the normal olive tree); if you like a nice neat ornamental form, you will probably have to do a fair bit of pruning (we haven’t...).  Reken Estate: 01/03/09

In 2007, itself not a notably warm growing season here, the olives got sufficiently ripe to make olive oil, at least I think so, being that there weren’t enough of them to actually do so!  Kathy’s Grove: 11/20/07

I remember the very first day I thought that this whole “olives in Oregon” thing could really work.  It was the day I picked a cup of olives off of a very young Frantoio tree I had just planted that spring.  Kathy’s Grove: 11/20/07

And here is the tree they came off of.  Kathy’s Grove 11/20/07

Note this tree is still making good shoot growth this growing season (the outer periphery of the tree without fruit), in spite of being small and carrying a relatively large fruit load on last years new growth.

 

Frantoio olives from the Dec 2009 harvest:

Frantoio tree after 5 growing seasons without pruning (Reken estate 02/11):