Olive Harvest!

For the second year in a row the UofA's LEAF (Linking Edible Arizona Forests)  program sponsored a harvest of the historic olive trees on campus. Many of the trees are among the oldest in the city and were planted in the 1890s by Robert Forbes, the first head of the Agriculture Experiment Station, whose goal was to find varieties that might do well in this region.

 

UA Students, employees, and other community members joined forces on Veteran's Day to harvest the fruit of the beautiful trees located east of Park Avenue on both sides of James E. Rogers Way.

 

Equipped with ladders, telescoping pole rakes, large blue tarps and buckets, teams of four spread out and plucked the olives from the trees.

 Large blue tarps caught the fruit that fell which was then collected in buckets for weighing. Records were kept of the output for each individual tree.

 The olives will be sent to the Queen Creek Olive Mill which will press them to extract the oil. There, experts will assess the product for taste and quality and make adjustments in the mixture adding in some of their own oil to create the perfect blend.

 The plan is to have the oil bottled and returned to the U of A where it will be made available for anyone to purchase at the campus bookstore.

 The total weight of all the harvested olives was about 370 pounds, surpassing the goal of 300.

Check out the U of A LEAF Facebook page for future harvests of olives and other edible plants on campus.