{"id":19686,"date":"2026-10-02T08:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T08:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/organic-olive-groves\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T08:20:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T08:20:00","slug":"organic-olive-groves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/organic-olive-groves\/","title":{"rendered":"The Organic Olive Grove: Where a Great Oil Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Before the bottle, the mill or even the olive, there is the olive grove. A tree that can live for centuries, a landscape that defines half of Spain and an ecosystem that, well cared for, fills with life. Every great extra virgin olive oil starts here.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"key-points\">\n<p class=\"key-points-title\">In short<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The olive tree (<em>Olea europaea<\/em>) is a long-lived Mediterranean tree, drought-resistant and with a very marked yearly cycle.<\/li>\n<li>Spain is the world&#8217;s largest olive oil producer, with more than 2.5 million hectares of olive groves.<\/li>\n<li>Organic olive groves do without synthetic pesticides and fertilisers and work with cover crops and biodiversity.<\/li>\n<li>Decisions in the field (variety, pruning, timing of the harvest) determine much of the oil&#8217;s quality.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n<h2>A tree made to last<\/h2>\n<p>The olive is an evergreen tree, its leaves silvery on the underside, perfectly adapted to dry summers and the poor soils of the Mediterranean. Its roots search for water deep down and its wood regenerates easily, which is why there are olive trees several centuries old that still bear fruit. In Spain there are monumental specimens in the Maestrat, Mallorca and Andalusia, true living monuments.<\/p>\n<p>There are hundreds of olive varieties. In Spain alone more than two hundred are grown commercially, although a few dominate the landscape: <a href=\"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/picual-olive-oil\/\">Picual<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/hojiblanca-olive-oil\/\">Hojiblanca<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/cornicabra-olive-oil\/\">Cornicabra<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/arbequina-olive-oil\/\">Arbequina<\/a>, Manzanilla Cacere\u00f1a and Empeltre, among others.<\/p>\n\n<h2>The olive grove&#8217;s year<\/h2>\n<p>Every oil is the result of a year&#8217;s work. Broadly, this is how the seasons go in an olive grove in southern Spain:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table>\n<thead><tr><th>Season<\/th><th>What happens in the tree<\/th><th>Work in the field<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr><td>Winter<\/td><td>Dormancy after the harvest<\/td><td>Pruning, looking after the cover crop<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><td>Spring<\/td><td>New shoots and flowering (April\u2013May)<\/td><td>Managing the cover crop, monitoring pests<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><td>Summer<\/td><td>Fruit set and stone hardening<\/td><td>Supplementary irrigation where available<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><td>Autumn<\/td><td>Oil builds up in the flesh; veraison arrives<\/td><td>Harvest begins (October\u2013November)<\/td><\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Veraison<\/strong>, when the olive turns from green to purple, is key. Harvesting earlier gives greener, more intense oils rich in polyphenols; waiting gives higher yields and milder oils. We explain it in depth in <a href=\"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/early-harvest-olive-oil-guide\/\">what early harvest olive oil is<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Traditional, intensive and hedgerow<\/h2>\n<p>Not all olive groves are the same. Broadly, there are three models:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Traditional groves<\/strong>: widely spaced trees, often centuries old and rain-fed, on hillsides. This is the classic landscape of Ja\u00e9n, C\u00f3rdoba and Toledo, with lower yields per hectare and high environmental and cultural value.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Intensive groves<\/strong>: more trees per hectare and usually irrigation. They allow mechanical harvesting.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hedgerow or super-intensive groves<\/strong>: continuous rows harvested with straddle machines. They work mainly with small varieties such as Arbequina and Arbosana.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All three can produce high-quality extra virgin olive oil. The difference lies in the care: picking healthy olives from the tree at the right time, and milling them as soon as possible.<\/p>\n\n<h2>The organic olive grove: living soil and biodiversity<\/h2>\n<p>In a certified organic olive grove, no synthetic herbicides, insecticides or fertilisers are used. Instead, practices are applied that aim for a balanced system:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Cover crops<\/strong> between the rows, which protect the soil from erosion, retain water and feed soil life.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Organic fertilisation<\/strong> with compost, manure or shredded pruning residues.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Biological pest control<\/strong>, encouraging the insects and birds that feed on pests, with hedgerows, field margins and nest boxes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mowing adapted to the natural calendar<\/strong>: the cover crop is cut after flowering, leaving food for pollinators.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Initiatives such as <strong>Olivares Vivos<\/strong>, promoted by SEO\/BirdLife and the University of Ja\u00e9n, have shown that restoring biodiversity in olive groves is compatible with their profitability, and can even improve it. Some producers in our shop, such as Castillo de Canena, take part in this project and in biodynamic farming.<\/p>\n<p>If you are interested in how all this is certified, we explain it in <a href=\"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/certified-organic-olive-oil\/\">what certified organic olive oil means<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<h2>From grove to mill<\/h2>\n<p>The quality built over a year in the field can be lost in hours. That is why the best producers pick only olives from the tree, carry them in clean crates or trailers and mill them the same day. The result is an oil that keeps the aromas of the grove intact: grass, leaf, tomato plant, almond\u2026 The landscape, quite literally, in a bottle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-cta\"><a class=\"btn\" href=\"\/en\/product-category\/organic-extra-virgin-olive-oil\/biodynamic-olive-oil\/\">See biodynamic oils<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A tree that lives for centuries, a year of work and an ecosystem full of life: this is the olive grove, and this is how organic producers look after it to make a great extra virgin olive oil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[279],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-organic-olive-grove-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xn--aceiteolivaespaa-lub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}