Journal of Food, Agriculture & Environment Vol.9 (3&4): 430-433. 2011

Effects of different soil management practices on production and quality of oli\ t

groves in Southern Albania

Bardhosh Ferraj 1 Zydi Teqja

1 Lush Susaj

1 Ndoc Fasllia

2, Zef Gjeta

2, Ndoc Vata

1 and Astrit Bali

1

Agricultural University of Tirana, Horticultural Department, Koder Kamez, 1029, Tirana, Albania. 2 Ministry of Agricvk

Food and Consumer Protection, Tirana, Albania. *e-mail: aballiu@ubt.edu.al

Received 23 June 2011, accepted 28 September 2011.

Abstract The experiment was conducted in three consecutive years from 2006 to 2008, in Vlora region, south of Albania, in a 25 years old olive grove | with a

local cultivar named Kalinjot. The plot was situated in an uniform hill with a sloping gradient of 5 to 6% and a planting density of I ha1 (7 mx7 m).

A randomized complete block design (RCBD) with 5 replications and plot size of 245 m2 containing 11 olive trees was weather was dry in the

summer with a typical Mediterranean distribution of precipitation from autumn to spring, and no irrigation was c throughout the whole experimental

period. Several crop management practices were applied: Conventional (no intervention, fallow anc en chemical control (glyphosate and diuron

applications) and organic (cover crop and straw mulching). Production of olives per plant (POP| mean weight (DMW), drupe oil content (DOC) and

drupe oil acidity (DOA) were recorded for a 3-year period. The different soil i practices influenced the olive production per plant and drupe oil

content under the rainfed growing conditions. Compared to common co farmer practices, organic soil management practices and chemical control of

weeds provided higher yield due to reduced competition of olh e 1 soil water reserves, thanks to reduced number of weeds and improved soil

physical properties. Organic mulching and mixed leguminous ( seems to be the most sustainable practices in terms of yearly production and nature

preservation.

Key words: Fallow, grazing, organic mulching, leguminous cover crop, weed chemical control, olive drupe production, olive oil quality.

Introduction Olive tree is considered owe of the most important fruit tree to

Ionian and Adriatic coastline. Albania counts about 5 million olive

trees scattered across 118,639 small agricultural farms. The annual

olive oil production ranges from 5000 to 6000 tons9, with revenues

reaching about 30 million, while oil consumption is 2.1 litres per

capita. 'Kalinjot' is the most widespread olive cultivar in Albania,

occupying over 55% of the area under olive trees. Due to the high

environmental adaptability and high oil content, 'Kalinjot' continues

to dominate the variety structure of new olive orchards in Albania.

Actually farmers are applying quite extensive soil management

practices of olive groves, while obviously better soil management

practices are needed to improve olive growth and productivity. The

soil has to maintain a good structure, allowing roots to explore the

maximum possible volume. It should be well aerated, with

regulated ratios of air and soil water; not too much water 10

induce erosion and water logging, and not too little to safeguard

the olive tree functionality, especially during the cnicial pen :o>

: f plant development and fructification7. High-yielding : . -1 -re-

develop buds of optimal length, promote flower byd - ~ give a

good percentage of fruiting, and stimulate frail deiciapanC. Hence,

maintaining good availability of waier. ~ _ - r ~ : ire

f F xxl Agriculture & Environment, Vol.9 (3&4), July-October Ji

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e'diboVrydvates dvxrmg the crop rae essential to mzi

Maximal oil yield and quality are key components of oil nl

production that must be maintained if an orchard is to economically

viable 5. In recent years, the greater awareness] sustainable

development in the economic and social sector-1 associated with a

growing interest in organic agriculture, wi defined as a cultivation

system that seeks to produce croc* | maximum nutritional quality

while respecting the environmeii i conserving soil fertility, by

means of optimal utilization of W| resources without the application

of synthetic chemil products 2.

The aim of the present work was to evaluate the effect of I

different types of crop management (conventional, integrai and

organic) and weed control (tillage, mulching, and heibkj

application) on the yield and production quality of olive orcha^

Materials and Methods

The experiment was conducted in three consecutive years fr: 1 X- :e

2008. in Vlora region, south of Albania. The experimes r ;: \\ is

situated in a 25 years-old orchard, planted with a c _ : IT named

'Kalinjoti', widespread in Albania and kno^r -> arge environmental

adaptability and high oil content. The

430

situated in a uniform hill with a sloping gradient of 5 :: - ' a planting

density of200 plants ha"1 (7 mx7 m). Arandamizec lete block design

(RCBD) with 5 replications and plot size ;: ; m

: containing 11 olive

trees was used. A sample of 2 randomh :ted olive trees was

monitored to collect experimental da:^. irrigation possibilities

existed in the plot and no irrigation v* zs ucted throughout the whole

experimental period. The climate dry in the summer with a typical

Mediterranean distribution precipitation from autumn to spring.

Prior the experiment to commence a deep tillage was performed fy

the soil subsurface, in terms of water permeability, aeration weeds

population. Further on, several crop management ces were applied;

conventional (control with no intervention, and grazing), chemical

control (glyphosate and diuron cations) and organic (cover crop and

straw mulching). Conventional practices were adopted as common

farmer's soil agement practices. In the control variant, no

intervention at is applied throughout the course of experiment and

weeds left freely grown. In case of grazing variant, cereals were at

end of autumn (25 kg of seeds per hectare), and grazing conducted

by natural pasturing of 5 sheep/variant from ry to May. The fallow

system was conducted and maintained nechanical tillage in January

at the depth of 17-20 cm, and a quent tillage (15-17 cm) in the end of

April or beginning of

Chemical control of weeds was conducted through the ration of

respectively glyphosate (Roundup 36), 6 L/ha 1 in 500 L water, and

diuron (Toterban 50), 4 L/ha diluted in 1 of water. Diuron was

spread over the soil after tillage in ry, while glyphosate was spread

over vegetation cover - May, when most of weeds reached 10 cm

height, cover crop was composed by a mixture of leguminous and

crops (2:1). Plants were seeded in October and foraged as grasses in

May. Meantime, the organic mulching was ted by soil coverage with

a 10 cm thick wheat straw. Prior ching the mechanical tillage was

conducted in December -niching itself was laid down during

January. Except of

nirol(no intervention) and organic mulching where no fertilizers %

ere :o the rest of variants a common fertilization program u ir .ed as

basic dressing. Fertilizers were broadcasted by hsn d

during January. A common and unified pesticide application program,

also, was applied to all variants to control plant pests and diseases.

Production of olives per plant (POP), drupe mean weight (DM W),

drupe oil content (DOC) and drupe oil acidity (DOA) were recorded for

a 3-year period. POP was obtained as average per plant by hand

harvesting the drupes from all trees in the sampling area within each

plot. DOC was determined by crushing small olive samples in a mortar

by hand and determination of oil content with the Soxhlet method and

oil acidity by the titration method with potassium hydroxide (0.1 N

KOH). DMW was obtained by weighing 1000 drupes per sample,

while weed density was expressed by the total number of grasses and

small shrubs counted in a fixed frame (0.5 mx0.5 m). Data obtained

were subjected to ANOVA conducted by MSTAT-C. The significance

of differences among mean values was tested by LSD test.

Results and Discussion

Appropriate soil management is essential to enhancing soil quality and

sustaining and improving olive production. Production of olives per

plant (POP) was affected by the soil management practices and by the

years (Tables 1 and 2). Control (no intervention) and grazing recorded

the lowest yield, while there was meantime a high acidity level. As

McGarry 6 noticed, soil structure degradation is regarded as the most

serious form of land degradation caused by conventional farming

practices. Our data confirms that grazing should be considered as the

most inappropriate method of soil management. Generally speaking, it

seems that conventional land management practices are not appropriate

to optimize water flow into, and its retention within the root zone of the

crop. Thus, \\ seems that poor yields in such cases are mostly related to

an insufficiency of water conservation.

Organic mulching and fallow practice provided in our case the

highest yield, as well as the lowest rate of drupe's acidity. It could

1. Mean values of estimated yield and production quality parameters and weeds density according to

different soil management practices (mean values, different letters indicate significant difference at

P

be explained with better water availability to olive trees, because both

practices reduced competition from weeds, as well as in case of

mulching reduced evaporation rate. Since, with the exception of

mulching, there was no significant difference among different crop

management practices regarding the average weight of drupes (Table

1), the production differences per plant are mostly due to differences

regarding the number of fruits settled by the trees.

In our experiments, no significant differences were found among

fallow, cover crop and mulching (Table 1). Anyway, the frequent

tillage which is widely practiced is of doubtful agronomic values1.

Since in non-irrigated regions, with low rainfall, soil moisture is of vital

importance, tillage could have a negative effect on soil water, because

by turning the soil, stored water is lost through evaporation. Continuous

tillage can also give rise to a loss of organic matter and, as a result, can

substantially reduce soil fertility and the ability of the soil to supply

nutrients. Obviously, the management techniques, which imply less

machinery needs, would cause less soil compaction and erosion 8.

It is well known that the cover crops have direct and indirect effects

on soil properties, particularly on their capacity to promote an

increased biodiversity in the agro-ecosystem. The cover cropping is the

most suitable soil management practice to protect the soil surface from

erosion, to preserve the environment, to reduce production costs and to

enhance the quality of olive oil2. As also Corleto and Cazzato 4

concluded, we found that among the soil management practices, the use

of annual legume species appears to be more appropriate for soil

management than cereal species or weed cover, with the latter

contributing to higher water consumption and nitrogen uptake.

However, cover crops could compete with olive trees for minerals,

water and fertilizer if they are not well managed.

Considering weeds as strong competitors for water resources it is of

highest importance to evaluate the influence of the different soil

management practices on the composition and density of weeds 10.

Compared with control (no intervention) all other methods showed a

strong significant effect on the reduction of

total number of weeds. All chemical and organic prac~ to the same

statistical group regarding the total number though it seems that

the best results were obtained by glyphosate. There was

evidenced a total action over i (Trifolium sp.(L.), Sonchus sp.

L., Xanthium spr Heliotropium europaeum (L.),

Centaurea solstitial^ sp. (L.), Cynodon dactylon (Pers.),

Bromus sp. (L.), A* (L.), Koeleria gracilis (L.)) and shrubs

(Rubus ulmifol: Dittrichia viscosa (L.)), apart from weed

Aram italicum \ L was not affected by glyphosate. Even by

grazing tfeers significant reduction of weeds, except the fact

that sh not affected at all. Due to that, a gradual increase

population was evidenced overyears. Organic mulching a good

option to reduce natural weeds, but one mighi that wheat straw

is used to carry large quantities of Triticum, Phalaris, Lilium

and other species, whici contribute to the increase of weed

number in olive ore In terms of olive production per plant,

chemical control provided similar results with cover crop and

follow Obviously the positive effect of herbicides was relatt:

reduction of weed population and minimizing the com- olive

trees for water reserves. Anyway, avoiding c herbicides

provides a two-fold benefit: the quality of die product is

superior and the ecological balance is preserve: systems which

involve an excessively intensive use of he can expose the soil to

severe erosion 1.

Soil management practice seems to play a role to sust~ of olive

production. Mulching was the best method in t production

sustainability. It was the only method that significant difference

among years regarding the produc plant. Despite the trend of

gradual increase of production the first to the third year, all other

methods showed sign differences among years (Table 2). As a

matter of fatt differences regarding average weight of olive

drupes were significant. With the exception of control and

grazing, the a\ fruit weight cramped to almost the same statistical

group management practices and over years (Table 5 fact

confirms the previous conclusion that diffa on plant production

seem to be mostly d differences regarding the number of fruits se~

The influence of soil management practices limited

in terms of weed population density over (Table 4).

There were a larger number of weeds second year

versus the first one, but it seems due to weed biology

and/or weather cond: (rainfed) rather than the direct

effects of management practices. Generally speaking,

number of weeds was reduced in the third year,

remained unchanged in case of grazing, and was

increased (though not statistically signifi in case of

fallow.

Conclusions

The soil management practices influence the

production per plant and drupe oil content rainfed

growing conditions. Compared to co conventional

fanner practices, organic soil manag practices and

chemical control of weeds prof higher yield due to

reduced competition of olive

Table 3. Mean values of drupe weight (g) according to different soil

management practices over years (mean values, different letters indicate

significant difference at P

soil water reserves, thanks to reduced number of w eeds and proved

soil physical properties. Organic mulching and .iminous cover

crops seem to be the most sustainable practices :erms of year by

year production and nature preservation.

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1 of Food, Agriculture & Environment, Vol.9 (3&4), July-October 2011 433

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