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Video: Garcia De La Cruz

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Garcia De La Cruz

Length: 4:47 Added: Jul-13 Views: 2276

Video featuring products available on Costco.com.

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Video featuring products available on Costco.com.

Olive trees date back to over 7,000 years ago, to a region between Palestine, Crete, and Egypt. Olive trees date back over 7,000 years ago, to a region between Palestine, Crete, and Egypt. They stretch all over the Mediterranean basin and were introduced into Spain by the Phoenicians in the second Millennium BC. Hence we find significant 1,000 year old examples here on the Iberian Peninsula. The olive tree is a very long lasting tree, surviving high temperatures and well adapted to a dry climate. Its intensely green twisted trunk is distinctive, also its roots with the abandoned branches in charge of absorbing nutrients. The stump, a name given to the area between the root and the trunk, has the ability to continually to regenerate itself, sprouting new roots and shoots. [MUSIC PLAYING] The trunk is gray-green, and smooth, over time becoming gnarled. The leaves are evergreen and oblong, green on the upper side and silvery gray on the underside. The silver color that embellishes the olive tree reduces transpiration and therefore water loss. In March and April, the olive tree produces clusters of white flowers. The wind carries pollen grains from one tree to another, but only 5% of this is able to actually produce an olive. The olive is green at first, then violet or red, and black when reaching maturity. As the olives ripen, small droplets of oil inside-- lipids-- join together to form larger drops. At first the quantity of oil is small compared with water. As the olive gradually takes on a purple shade, this amount increases to reach 25% depending on the crop. Later the oil again decreases, and the amount of water increases. [MUSIC PLAYING] Our 100-year-old olive trees belong to the cornicabra variety, although they are largely mixed with their relations, the picual and the arbequina. [SPEAKING SPANISH] obtains its olive oil from the trees located in the foothills of the Montes de Toledo in Madridejos, So single varietal oil belongs to the Montes de Toledo Denominacion de Origen. Guarantee of origin and quality, there are three types of crop. The traditional olive grove, with two or three feet of plant and a distance of 12 meters between each tree. The intensive grove, with one foot of plant and a separation of five to eight meters between each. And the superintensive grove, forming hedges planted on trellises, spaced three to four meters apart. Harvesting starts between October and December and ends in February or March depending on the crop. [MUSIC PLAYING] Harvesting techniques are diverse, from milking and handpicking to the latest trellis harvesting techniques. In manual collection we place large oil nets around the trees, and either by beating or shaking the olives down by milking, we attempt to do the least possible damage to the tree. Mechanical harvesting is done either by vibrating the tree with a clamp that grabs the trunk, and olives drop into a kind of tarpon umbrella. [MUSIC PLAYING] Or what is known as a harvester is used, which harvests the crop when it is superintensive. After harvesting the olives, the tractor transports them immediately to the oil press or olive oil mill, where the process of oil production begins.