Island Point Olive Grove is located 30 kilometres south of Mandurah, between Lake Clifton and the Harvey Estuary. We purchased 30 hectares of mostly cleared land in 2000, and started planting trees in 2001. At that stage we were pushing 60 years old, and husband was working full time (he still is!) We didn't have a lot of practical farming skill so relied heavily on consultants and contractors to start with. It is amazing how quickly you can learn though. Our initial plantings were dogged with problems. A lot of our trees died when small, even though they were watered and fed and generally cosseted. We had 'experts' coming to see the dying seedlings and all sorts of theories espoused. We treated them for soil born diseases of various types, protected them with tree guards against sunburn, mulched them. removed the mulch, replanted and crossed our fingers. Eventually a young ph.d student, working in plant diseases, the son of a friend, came and took some samples and in the laboratory identified Macrophomina Phaesiolina (I can't spell this correctly, but it is like that), a condition not previously regarded as affecting olives. I note now that in the Australian olive reference books it is quoted as a factor which will cause the death of young trees!
We also suffered the scourge of Rutherglen bug, a nasty little thing the size of an aphid which like an aphid sucks the life out of plants and will defoliate a young tree, often leading to its death. We tried all sorts of control methods, but the best way to beat it was to get the trees growing vigourously, as the bug seemed to lose interest in the trees once they got past a certain height.
We also suffered the scourge of Rutherglen bug, a nasty little thing the size of an aphid which like an aphid sucks the life out of plants and will defoliate a young tree, often leading to its death. We tried all sorts of control methods, but the best way to beat it was to get the trees growing vigourously, as the bug seemed to lose interest in the trees once they got past a certain height.
