Mechanical harvesting at dawn in a super-high-density table olive orchard: effect on the quality of fruits.

Background: Mechanical harvesting with over-the-row harvesters in super-high-density (SHD) table olive orchards increases the effectiveness of fruit removal, although bruising can limit the fruit quality. Additionally, an early harvest in periods less favourable to quality production is increasingly frequent as a result of global warming. The present study explores the impact on olive quality of harvesting at dawn when the environmental temperature is low.

Calcium applications throughout fruit development enhance olive quality, oil yield, and antioxidant compounds' content.

Background: Calcium is a preservative and firming agent largely used in the table olive industry. Foliar applications of calcium (as calcium chloride, CaCl ) before harvest have been proposed in other fruits to increase firmness and reduce physiological disorders or internal damage. However, there is still a shortage of information regarding the source, the concentration, the number, and the period of calcium application onto the canopy to get an effective response of olive quality.

High-Throughput System for the Early Quantification of Major Architectural Traits in Olive Breeding Trials Using UAV Images and OBIA Techniques.

The need for the olive farm modernization have encouraged the research of more efficient crop management strategies through cross-breeding programs to release new olive cultivars more suitable for mechanization and use in intensive orchards, with high quality production and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. The advancement of breeding programs are hampered by the lack of efficient phenotyping methods to quickly and accurately acquire crop traits such as morphological attributes (tree vigor and vegetative growth habits), which are key to identify desirable genotypes as early as possible. In this context, an UAV-based high-throughput system for olive breeding program applications was developed to extract tree traits in large-scale phenotyping studies under field conditions.

Evaluation of Over-The-Row Harvester Damage in a Super-High-Density Olive Orchard Using On-Board Sensing Techniques.

New super-high-density (SHD) olive orchards designed for mechanical harvesting using over-the-row harvesters are becoming increasingly common around the world. Some studies regarding olive SHD harvesting have focused on the effective removal of the olive fruits; however, the energy applied to the canopy by the harvesting machine that can result in fruit damage, structural damage or extra stress on the trees has been little studied. Using conventional analyses, this study investigates the effects of different nominal speeds and beating frequencies on the removal efficiency and the potential for fruit damage, and it uses remote sensing to determine changes in the plant structures of two varieties of olive trees (‘Manzanilla Cacereña’ and ‘Manzanilla de Sevilla’) planted in SHD orchards harvested by an over-the-row harvester.

Asynchronous development of stigmatic receptivity in the pear (Pyrus communis; Rosaceae) flower.

While stigma anatomy is well documented for a good number of species, little information is available on the acquisition and cessation of stigmatic receptivity. The aim of this work is to characterize the development of stigma receptivity, from anthesis to stigma degeneration, in the pentacarpellar pear (Pyrus communis) flower. Stigma development and stigmatic receptivity were monitored over two consecutive years, as the capacity of the stigmas to offer support for pollen germination and pollen tube growth.