‘Chemlali’ olive trees in an irrigated grove: effects of tree age on virgin olive oil quality and mineral nutrient distribution in roots, leaves and fruits

Abstract

Introduction. The effects of tree age on the quality of olive oil are not very clear. Data on the mineral element content in different plant organs of cv. Chemlali are also very scarce, and the correlation between tree age and mineral content is still unclear. Materials and methods. A two-year study was conducted on irrigated 'Chemlali' olive trees of two different ages (12 years old vs. 24 years old) in order to verify possible effects on either the nutritional balance in different plant organs (leaves, roots, fruits) or the virgin olive oil (VOO) quality. Results and discussion. The 24-year-old trees showed a higher mineral concentration with respect to 12-year-old trees in roots and fruits, whereas the opposite was reported for the leaves. Total phenols and induction time values were significantly lower in VOO from 24-year-old trees. Palmitic, palmitoleic, stearic and linoleic acid concentrations were higher in VOO of 24-year-old trees. Conclusion. These results can be useful in order to discriminate the characteristics of VOO obtained from trees of different ages and the mineral content data can be used for the optimization of the fertilization schedules with respect to the olive tree age for more sustainable management of olive groves.

Nitrogen Distribution in Annual Growth of ‘Italia’ Table Grape Vines

“…The N concentration in primary leaves was almost identical to values reported for 50 to 60-year old Thompson Seedless vines ( Treeby and Wheatley, 2006 ), when a variation split in three stages was reported to have final values of around 10 g/kg, slightly lower than ours probably because of the different age of the vines. Tree age can affect nutrient concentration in different organs, as recently reported for olive ( Olea europaea L.) trees ( Bedbabis et al, 2016 ).…”

“…The differences for some parameters such as cluster size were probably the consequence of climatic conditions (Table 1 ) in the area and cluster thinning operation owing to the crop load of the vines. However, variations from season to season are commonly observed in many species, in particular in alternate bearing species such as olive ( Olea europaea L.) tree ( Bedbabis et al, 2016 ), but these variations can also occur in many fruit species such as grape.…”

Industrial Ultrasound Applications in the Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Extraction Process: History, Approaches, and Key Questions

“…In fact, one of the major problems linked to the development of innovations in the oil sector is due to the fact that the harvesting season lasts only three months each year. Moreover, the climatic variability of different years [38,39,40,41,42] makes experimental conditions, which are linked to initial fruit quality, unrepeatable, and it becomes extremely complex to exploit the results of the observations in strategies of rapid optimization. This condition implies that it is necessary to introduce useful technologies to overcome the limits of the empirical approach.…”

Hierarchical structuring for the olive trees irrigation problem in Tunisia

“…These are also subdivided into subcriteria. The concept of 'quality', especially for virgin olive oil, must be defined and a judicial control of the respect of commercial indices and authenticity must be established (Gharsallaoui et al, 2011;Bedbabis et al, 2016). The criteria of olive oil quality are: acidity (C411), peroxide value (C412), ultraviolet absorbance (C413), chlorophyll quantity (C414) and polyphenol content (C415).…”