stewartwillsher
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 15, 2017
- Messages
- 1,111
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- Location
- Western Spain and Costa de la Luz
Small WAFFLE, and no cruelty to humans. :sleeping-yellow:
Cutting the children sounds dreadful, but the Spanish expression "cortar los hijos" is exactly what it translates as.
Grandson and I have just done precisely that to our olive trees, over sixty in number.
The hijos are the new shoots which every year grow anew from either close to the soil or up to about half a metre up the trunk.
It is a ritual all olive cultivators do, although I find it difficult to believe these suckers draw much energy away from the crop of fruit forming on the trees.
Although some can be the thickness of your thumb, most are much thinner.
They are chopped off as close to the main trunk as possible using a variety of crude methods.
With gloves it is possible to remove most with a tug, but I prefer to use a small axe, no larger than a normal hammer and grab one or even a handful of hijos, and slice them off.
Our chap, if I haven't done them, kicks most off with his working boots, or batters them with the brushcutter whilst reducing the weeds to chaff.
The removal of the hijos is not to be confused with the pruning for shape and productivity, which can take place any time after harvest (turn of the year) and before the blossom buds form in spring.
Hijos, on some trees, seem to be constantly being formed during the summer and even autumn and a keen olive man will deal with them as he spots them.
No hijos, unless left to grow into new mature branches, will show buds, blossom or fruit for several years, so unless the tree is to be severely reshaped or to remove some diseased or ancient non-productive wood, they all get the chop.
Hope you found that of interest. :eusa-think:
Cutting the children sounds dreadful, but the Spanish expression "cortar los hijos" is exactly what it translates as.
Grandson and I have just done precisely that to our olive trees, over sixty in number.
The hijos are the new shoots which every year grow anew from either close to the soil or up to about half a metre up the trunk.
It is a ritual all olive cultivators do, although I find it difficult to believe these suckers draw much energy away from the crop of fruit forming on the trees.
Although some can be the thickness of your thumb, most are much thinner.
They are chopped off as close to the main trunk as possible using a variety of crude methods.
With gloves it is possible to remove most with a tug, but I prefer to use a small axe, no larger than a normal hammer and grab one or even a handful of hijos, and slice them off.
Our chap, if I haven't done them, kicks most off with his working boots, or batters them with the brushcutter whilst reducing the weeds to chaff.
The removal of the hijos is not to be confused with the pruning for shape and productivity, which can take place any time after harvest (turn of the year) and before the blossom buds form in spring.
Hijos, on some trees, seem to be constantly being formed during the summer and even autumn and a keen olive man will deal with them as he spots them.
No hijos, unless left to grow into new mature branches, will show buds, blossom or fruit for several years, so unless the tree is to be severely reshaped or to remove some diseased or ancient non-productive wood, they all get the chop.
Hope you found that of interest. :eusa-think:
:beer: