The Olive Harvest 2017

The Annual Olive Harvest 2017
The 2017 harvest produced 568.0 kg of fruit. After this was procssed at the oil press factory the oil produced was 61.9kg or 69.4 litres. This means the yield was 10.9% by weight. Some Martinborough growers achieved less than 5% yield due to a higher water content, so although we did well we would normally get 15-17%. People participating in the harvest received just over 6 litres each, costing $56.19 each. We had a change of presser this year, using the Greytown press rather than the Martinborough one, as they could not cope with our fruit. The Greytown company has a different process which is faster and more sophisticated. Thanks are due to Michael McCarthy who organised the harvest this year, and to Bruce Hancox for the use of his ute. Special thanks also to Keith Hales for loaning us his electric picker for the last few trees. We hope to purchase one for next year's harvest.

We were really lucky with the weather - after some heavy rain the day before, the sun came out and shone on everyone for the whole day. Below is a small selection of photos taken during the harvest.

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