Hi Forum

we have just returned back to sunny London from Camp-redo and had sucessfully managed to harvest some of our trees. It was a bit difficult as our land has now totally overgrown.
A local farmer explained to us that there was a fungus in our trees! !!
We like the idea of an organic farm but understand that this may be a bit of wishfull thinking.
We have had no chemicals on the trees for some time and was wondering dose  anyone know where we can buy a pesticide  for this and what brand to use etc?  Do we need to hire a tractor or will a hand system be OK? Is this fungus  a real problem in these parts?
I do hope someone can help!


Thanks in advance

Ruth and Kevin

We were told by a local farmer that our trees on our finca near Tivissa were diseased when in fact all that happened was that he promised to go up there and look after them, and hell did he! He harvested the lot in 2005 and that was it, the robbing bastard.
Our neighbour had a look at them this year and said they are fine and it takes a long time for olives to get diseases or fungi or anything else. He has been growing his the organic way, meaning doing exactly - nothing. Just pruned them, which is important, every year and if needed picadored the land. He then went and pruned all our trees (335, bless him!) and asked a local chap to go over the land. We now have the most beautiful wildflowers and herbs growing between the trees and all we do is ask the local shepherd to let his goats and sheep eat the weeds on our land and that's it.

A word of warning about the pesticides - they make you seriously ill. We live in the campo near L'Ampolla and one day, the local farmer turns up and starts spraying the olives trees without giving a warning of what he is spraying or mentioning that it's toxic ?We grew suspicious because the spayer person was wearing a helmet that made him look like an astronaut, so we ran, got all the dogs in and closed the doors and windows. Still - one of our dogs got seriously poisened and it took her 4 days to recover. I don't know what this will leave her with but I was quite angry.

To top it all an airplane came around twice in October and spayed the area whilst we were sitting outside.

I now have been told that if your trees really are prone to disease then you spray them with a copper solution twice a year. Your best bet is to go to your local co-operative (i.e. Soldebre in Tortosa) and ask them for advise but be firm and say you want to do things in the organic way.

Another idea might be to ask the Soil Association. I am sure they know someone who knows about organic olive growing as there is now organic olive oil available at Waitrose and Sainsbury's (or why not ask them or buy a bottle and trace the producer via the internet).

Kind regards
Sabine