South African Olive Farm Prepares for Challenging Harvest Season

Summary

Gert van Dyk of Tokara Olives antic­i­pates the upcom­ing har­vest sea­son in South Africa’s Western Cape region, despite fac­ing chal­lenges due to heavy rains. Tokara’s com­mit­ment to pro­duc­ing high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil through sus­tain­able farm­ing prac­tices has earned them recog­ni­tion as one of the coun­try’s top pro­duc­ers and a Gold Award at the 2024 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

“It will all start very soon,” Gert van Dyk, oper­a­tions man­ager at Tokara Olives, told Olive Oil Times.

The har­vest sea­son is fast approach­ing in the foothills of the Simonsberg moun­tain range near Stellenbosch, in the heart of a vast nature con­ser­vancy in South Africa’s Western Cape region.

When the trees have to wake up in August, they can­not because it’s too cold and too wet.- Gert van Dyk, oper­a­tions man­ager, Tokara Olives

“While some farms in our region will enjoy a highly pro­duc­tive har­vest, we face greater chal­lenges due to the heavy rains between last October and November,” van Dyk said.

“Groves in lower areas, where the roots awak­ened ear­lier, expe­ri­enced ear­lier flow­er­ing,” he added. ​“Our farm, sit­u­ated on a moun­tain slope with cooler tem­per­a­tures and heav­ier soil, was hit by rain­fall right in the mid­dle of flow­er­ing.”

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Despite these chal­lenges, Tokara remains com­mit­ted to pro­duc­ing high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil. The company’s ded­i­ca­tion has earned it recog­ni­tion as one of the coun­try’s top pro­duc­ers and a Gold Award at the 2024 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

Tokara’s jour­ney with olive oil began at the dawn of the 21st cen­tury. ​“In 2001, Mr. and Mrs. Ferreira, the found­ing own­ers of Tokara, had the vision of cre­at­ing world-class extra vir­gin olive oil along­side our renowned wines,” van Dyk said.

Van Dyk attrib­utes much of Tokara’s suc­cess to its com­mit­ment to sus­tain­able farm­ing prac­tices.

“As a farmer, I want to work as nat­u­rally as pos­si­ble,” he explained. ​“I would like to be bio­dy­namic or organic or in some way try to be the clos­est to it that I can be.”

A cor­ner­stone of Tokara’s olive cul­ti­va­tion is its com­mit­ment to Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

Traditional farm­ing relies on pre­de­fined chem­i­cal inter­ven­tion pro­to­cols for grove man­age­ment.

Tokara Olives’ groves sit at the foot of the picturesque Simonsberg mountain range. (Photo: Tokara Olives)

“In other words, the con­ven­tional way is that pre­ven­tion is bet­ter than cure,” van Dyk said. ​“Obviously, it is a very expen­sive sys­tem too.”

“To develop our IPM, we mon­i­tored the large areas weekly. The man­agers would go through those areas and file spe­cific reports,” he added. ​“This allowed us to imple­ment tar­geted treat­ments, address­ing pests only in affected areas rather than across the entire farm.”

This approach enabled the farm to iden­tify the yel­low and black striped olive bee­tle pop­u­la­tions, South Africa’s pri­mary olive pest. The lar­vae feed on leaves and bur­row into them, harm­ing new growth.

“Detecting the bee­tle in its lar­val stage allows us to con­trol it before it matures, pre­vent­ing future pop­u­la­tion surges,” van Dyk said.

This led to pre­cise spray­ing oper­a­tions that tar­geted pests while pre­serv­ing their nat­ural preda­tors.

“Pesticides should be pest-spe­cific,” van Dyk said. ​“Instead of using broad-spec­trum pyrethroids that kill every­thing, we apply tar­geted treat­ments that elim­i­nate only the intended insect.” 

In addi­tion to pest con­trol, the farm pri­or­i­tizes soil health through envi­ron­men­tally sus­tain­able prac­tices.

“I call them biopods,” van Dyk said. ​“When we prune, we process the prun­ing through the chip­per. It makes a big heap of mulch in between the trees.” 

“Rather than evenly spread­ing the mulch, we leave the heaps intact, only remov­ing the top layer,” he added.

These heaps cre­ate a long-term habi­tat for microor­gan­isms, enhanc­ing soil fer­til­ity.

“If the mulch is spread out, sun­light burns off car­bon, reduc­ing its ben­e­fits,” he explained. ​“With biopods, the organ­isms live there for about two to three years.”

Van Dyk noted that biopods trans­form the far­m’s com­pacted soil into a richer, more fer­tile envi­ron­ment.

“They con­di­tion the soil to such a point that you can dig there by 30 cen­time­ters and the soil will be soft,” he said. ​“There will be earth­worms and white fun­gus, the roots will come into that area. It cre­ates soil con­di­tion­ing.”

“This cre­ates a sus­tain­able cycle. Improved soil leads to stronger root sys­tems and health­ier, more bal­anced trees,” van Dyk added.

Tokara’s groves are sit­u­ated at a high alti­tude near the sea and are impacted by a cool cli­mate and refresh­ing sea breezes. ​“These nat­ural con­di­tions cre­ate an ideal envi­ron­ment for olive grow­ing,” van Dyk said.

The farm grows sev­eral renowned Italian olive cul­ti­vars, includ­ing Frantoio, Coratina, Leccino and Favolosa, as well as the American vari­ety Mission.

“The blend obtained from these cul­ti­vars brought forth the desired aro­mas and taste pre­ferred by the own­ers,” van Dyk said.“Of course, a cru­cial aspect is the olive milling process.” 

“We count on a bou­tique-style olive oil mill with a state-of-the-art Pieralisi con­tin­u­ous-cycle extrac­tion plant,” he added. ​“That enables the miller to work with smaller batches of the high­est qual­ity hand­picked oil olives.”

Van Dyk empha­sized that olive pro­duc­ers in the region must account for the trees’ alter­nate bear­ing cycle when estab­lish­ing a farm.

On and off years

Olive trees have a nat­ural cycle of alter­nat­ing high and low pro­duc­tion years, known as ​“on-years” and ​“off-years,” respec­tively. During an on-year, the olive trees bear a greater quan­tity of fruit, result­ing in increased olive oil pro­duc­tion. Conversely, an ​“off-year” is char­ac­ter­ized by a reduced yield of olives due to the stress from the pre­vi­ous ​“on year.” Olive oil pro­duc­ers often mon­i­tor these cycles to antic­i­pate and plan for vari­a­tions in pro­duc­tion.

“That is the biggest chal­lenge in the indus­try. When you buy your trees, you should buy trees that are genet­i­cally less prone to alter­nate bear­ing,” he explained.

“When start­ing, check the nursery’s mother blocks to ensure they have a strong pro­duc­tion his­tory,” van Dyk added. ​“If you plant the clone of some­thing that is not here or there in terms of pro­duc­tion, then you’re going to fight your whole life to have good crops.” 

Weather pat­terns have also changed over the years, pos­ing new chal­lenges for local farm­ers.

“When I entered the indus­try 27 years ago, the Southeaster wind reli­ably began blow­ing on October 1st,” van Dyk said. ​“This dry wind played a cru­cial role in pol­li­na­tion.” 

Van Dyk has noticed how the climate has changed overtime, occassionally disrupting pollination and fruit setting. (Photo: Tokara Olives)

“Now, the wind arrives in November or December, cre­at­ing a more humid micro­cli­mate among the trees,” he added.

Tokara’s oper­a­tions man­ager also observed shifts in rain­fall pat­terns, with rains that pre­vi­ously arrived in March and April now falling in June or July.

“When the trees have to wake up in August, they can­not because it’s too cold and too wet. The soil is too cold. The roots go into a semi-hiber­na­tion when the soil tem­per­a­ture is under 12 ºC,” van Dyk noted.

Coping with those chal­lenges and aim­ing at qual­ity, Van Dyk believes there is a bright future for olive oil in the coun­try, as con­sumer aware­ness about extra vir­gin olive oil’s health ben­e­fits increases.

“Continuous edu­ca­tion through extra vir­gin olive oil tast­ings and pre­sen­ta­tions, high­light­ing health ben­e­fits and food pair­ing options, remain the core focus for the miller at Tokara,” he con­cluded.