Extraction of branches after pruning

Pruning olive trees is one of the most demanding – but at the same time most important – tasks in an olive grove. It is important to decide on a growing form and then follow it with regular pruning so that the yield and general condition of the trees are optimal. After pruning, the work is not finished, because the branches have to be pulled out of the olive grove. This article is about that job.

Depending on the planted area, i.e. the number of trees, more or less work will be required to remove the branches after pruning. It is recommended that this be done as soon as possible after pruning, for several reasons:

• The sooner we get the branches out, the sooner we can get on with other regular tasks in the olive grove. Thus, plowing or mowing olive groves, protection, and fertilization, etc.
• If you wait too long, the branches that need to be removed from the olive tree will lose their leaves and will be quite unpleasant to handle (pricking and scratching);
• If you plan to burn the branches – depending on the weather conditions, of course – freshly cut olive branches tend to burn relatively weaker compared to dry branches. Therefore, the fire pit will be more controlable.

Extracting branches from the olive grove – VIDEO

In the video below, you can witness from the “driver’s perspective” how we handle the process of extracting branches from the olive grove. In this olive grove, for several reasons, we are limited by the room for maneuver. It is quite difficult to bring and then position the branches on this fire pit with a tractor. For this reason, I manually threw branches onto the burning pile. Needless to say: this is difficult work, especially when it goes all day long, as was the case on 13/04/2022 when this video was recorded.

For this purpose we used a tractor attachment called harrow. With it, the branches are collected and pulled out of the olive tree. In a situation where there is enough maneuvering space for the tractor, harrow enables branches to be piled relatively precisely on the fire. However, the fire pit we made is in close proximity to two of our olive groves. Therefore, it was safer (although significantly slower) to throw the branches onto the pile by hand (using pitchforks).

We are nearing the end of olive pruning for this season. We still have 30 trees left to prune in our olive grove Vrta. Also, about a hundred smaller trees in our olive grove Zatrsina i Pricrikva. Considering that pruning is best done by mid-May, we still have plenty of time for it.