Journal of Food, Agriculture & Environment Vol.9 (3&4): 430-433.

2011

Effects of different soil management practices on production and quality of oli\ t
groves in Southern Albania
Bardhosh Ferraj
1
Zydi Teqja
1
Lush Susaj
1
Ndoc Fasllia
2
, Zef Gjeta
2
, Ndoc Vata
1
and Astrit Bali
1

Agricultural University of Tirana, Horticultural Department, Koder Kamez, 1029, Tirana, Albania.
2
Ministry of Agricvk
Food and Consumer Protection, Tirana, Albania. *e-mail: aballiu@ubt.edu.al
Received 23 June 2011, accepted 28 September 2011.
Abstract
The experiment was conducted in three consecutive years from 2006 to 2008, in Vlora region, south of Albania, in a 25 years old olive grove | with a
local cultivar named Kalinjot. The plot was situated in an uniform hill with a sloping gradient of 5 to 6% and a planting density of I ha
1
(7 mx7 m).
A randomized complete block design (RCBD) with 5 replications and plot size of 245 m
2
containing 11 olive trees was weather was dry in the
summer with a typical Mediterranean distribution of precipitation from autumn to spring, and no irrigation was c throughout the whole experimental
period. Several crop management practices were applied: Conventional (no intervention, fallow anc en chemical control (glyphosate and diuron
applications) and organic (cover crop and straw mulching). Production of olives per plant (POP| mean weight (DMW), drupe oil content (DOC) and
drupe oil acidity (DOA) were recorded for a 3-year period. The different soil i practices influenced the olive production per plant and drupe oil
content under the rainfed growing conditions. Compared to common co farmer practices, organic soil management practices and chemical control of
weeds provided higher yield due to reduced competition of olh e 1 soil water reserves, thanks to reduced number of weeds and improved soil
physical properties. Organic mulching and mixed leguminous ( seems to be the most sustainable practices in terms of yearly production and nature
preservation.
Key words: Fallow, grazing, organic mulching, leguminous cover crop, weed chemical control, olive drupe production, olive oil quality.
Introduction
Olive tree is considered owe of the most important fruit tree to
Ionian and Adriatic coastline. Albania counts about 5 million olive
trees scattered across 118,639 small agricultural farms. The annual
olive oil production ranges from 5000 to 6000 tons
9
, with revenues
reaching about 30 million, while oil consumption is 2.1 litres per
capita. 'Kalinjot' is the most widespread olive cultivar in Albania,
occupying over 55% of the area under olive trees. Due to the high
environmental adaptability and high oil content, 'Kalinjot' continues
to dominate the variety structure of new olive orchards in Albania.
Actually farmers are applying quite extensive soil management
practices of olive groves, while obviously better soil management
practices are needed to improve olive growth and productivity. The
soil has to maintain a good structure, allowing roots to explore the
maximum possible volume. It should be well aerated, with
regulated ratios of air and soil water; not too much water 10
induce erosion and water logging, and not too little to safeguard
the olive tree functionality, especially during the cnicial pen :o>
: f plant development and fructification
7
. High-yielding : . -1 -re-
develop buds of optimal length, promote flower byd - ~ give a
good percentage of fruiting, and stimulate frail deiciapanC. Hence,
maintaining good availability of waier. ~ _ - r ~ : ire

f F xxl Agriculture & Environment, Vol.9 (3&4), July-October Ji
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e'diboVrydvates dvxrmg the crop rae essential to mzi
Maximal oil yield and quality are key components of oil nl
production that must be maintained if an orchard is to economically
viable
5
. In recent years, the greater awareness] sustainable
development in the economic and social sector-1 associated with a
growing interest in organic agriculture, wi defined as a cultivation
system that seeks to produce croc* | maximum nutritional quality
while respecting the environmeii i conserving soil fertility, by
means of optimal utilization of W| resources without the application
of synthetic chemil products
2
.
The aim of the present work was to evaluate the effect of I
different types of crop management (conventional, integrai and
organic) and weed control (tillage, mulching, and heibkj
application) on the yield and production quality of olive orcha^
Materials and Methods
The experiment was conducted in three consecutive years fr: 1 X- :e
2008. in Vlora region, south of Albania. The experimes r ;: \\ is
situated in a 25 years-old orchard, planted with a c _ : IT named
'Kalinjoti', widespread in Albania and kno^r -> arge environmental
adaptability and high oil content. The



430
situated in a uniform hill with a sloping gradient of 5 :: - ' a planting
density of200 plants ha"
1
(7 mx7 m). Arandamizec lete block design
(RCBD) with 5 replications and plot size ;:
;
m
:
containing 11 olive
trees was used. A sample of 2 randomh :ted olive trees was
monitored to collect experimental da:^. irrigation possibilities
existed in the plot and no irrigation v* zs ucted throughout the whole
experimental period. The climate dry in the summer with a typical
Mediterranean distribution precipitation from autumn to spring.
Prior the experiment to commence a deep tillage was performed fy
the soil subsurface, in terms of water permeability, aeration weeds
population. Further on, several crop management ces were applied;
conventional (control with no intervention, and grazing), chemical
control (glyphosate and diuron cations) and organic (cover crop and
straw mulching). Conventional practices were adopted as common
farmer's soil agement practices. In the control variant, no
intervention at is applied throughout the course of experiment and
weeds left freely grown. In case of grazing variant, cereals were at
end of autumn (25 kg of seeds per hectare), and grazing conducted
by natural pasturing of 5 sheep/variant from ry to May. The fallow
system was conducted and maintained nechanical tillage in January
at the depth of 17-20 cm, and a quent tillage (15-17 cm) in the end of
April or beginning of
Chemical control of weeds was conducted through the ration of
respectively glyphosate (Roundup 36), 6 L/ha 1 in 500 L water, and
diuron (Toterban 50), 4 L/ha diluted in 1 of water. Diuron was
spread over the soil after tillage in ry, while glyphosate was spread
over vegetation cover - May, when most of weeds reached 10 cm
height, cover crop was composed by a mixture of leguminous and
crops (2:1). Plants were seeded in October and foraged as grasses in
May. Meantime, the organic mulching was ted by soil coverage with
a 10 cm thick wheat straw. Prior ching the mechanical tillage was
conducted in December -niching itself was laid down during
January. Except of
nirol(no intervention) and organic mulching where no fertilizers %
ere :o the rest of variants a common fertilization program u ir .ed as
basic dressing. Fertilizers were broadcasted by hsn d
during January. A common and unified pesticide application program,
also, was applied to all variants to control plant pests and diseases.
Production of olives per plant (POP), drupe mean weight (DM W),
drupe oil content (DOC) and drupe oil acidity (DOA) were recorded for
a 3-year period. POP was obtained as average per plant by hand
harvesting the drupes from all trees in the sampling area within each
plot. DOC was determined by crushing small olive samples in a mortar
by hand and determination of oil content with the Soxhlet method and
oil acidity by the titration method with potassium hydroxide (0.1 N
KOH). DMW was obtained by weighing 1000 drupes per sample,
while weed density was expressed by the total number of grasses and
small shrubs counted in a fixed frame (0.5 mx0.5 m). Data obtained
were subjected to ANOVA conducted by MSTAT-C. The significance
of differences among mean values was tested by LSD test.
Results and Discussion
Appropriate soil management is essential to enhancing soil quality and
sustaining and improving olive production. Production of olives per
plant (POP) was affected by the soil management practices and by the
years (Tables 1 and 2). Control (no intervention) and grazing recorded
the lowest yield, while there was meantime a high acidity level. As
McGarry
6
noticed, soil structure degradation is regarded as the most
serious form of land degradation caused by conventional farming
practices. Our data confirms that grazing should be considered as the
most inappropriate method of soil management. Generally speaking, it
seems that conventional land management practices are not appropriate
to optimize water flow into, and its retention within the root zone of the
crop. Thus, \\ seems that poor yields in such cases are mostly related to
an insufficiency of water conservation.
Organic mulching and fallow practice provided in our case the
highest yield, as well as the lowest rate of drupe's acidity. It could

1. Mean values of estimated yield and production quality parameters and weeds density according to
different soil management practices (mean values, different letters indicate significant difference at
P<0.05).


nent
non
al
Variant Yield
kg/plant
1000 fruit
weight g
Oil content % Fruit acidity % Weeds
plants/m
2

No intervention 24.1 c 330.2 ab 23.5 1.18 416a
Grazing 23.9 c 328.1 b 23.5 1.15 182 b
Fallow 35.5 ab 346.4 ab 23.4 1.10 115 be
Glyphosate 30.7 be 344.5 ab 23.1 1.14 16c
28.8 be 342.6 ab 23.7 1.20 102 be
Cover crop 28.4 be 338.4 ab 23.7 1.13
Mulching 38.0 a 349.2 a 23.7 1.05 52 be
i\
control

Variant Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
No intervention 20.5 ij 25.1 fghij 26.7
efghi
Grazing 19.1 ij 25.9 efghi 26.7
efghi
Fallow 31.2 cdef 36.6 abed 38.7 ab
Glyphosate 24.2 ghij 32.5 bede 35.4 abed
Diuron 21.9 ij 30.8 cdefg 33.7 abed
Cover crop 23.8 hij 30.4 defgh 31.0 cdef
Mulching 36.5 abed 37.5 abc 40 a
I
control
of Food, Agriculture & Environment, Vol.9 (3&4), July-October 2011
2. Mean values of yield per plant (POP) according to different soil
management practices over years (mean values, different letters indicate
significant difference at P<0.05).
nent
tiona
l
43
1
be explained with better water availability to olive trees, because both
practices reduced competition from weeds, as well as in case of
mulching reduced evaporation rate. Since, with the exception of
mulching, there was no significant difference among different crop
management practices regarding the average weight of drupes (Table
1), the production differences per plant are mostly due to differences
regarding the number of fruits settled by the trees.
In our experiments, no significant differences were found among
fallow, cover crop and mulching (Table 1). Anyway, the frequent
tillage which is widely practiced is of doubtful agronomic values
1
.
Since in non-irrigated regions, with low rainfall, soil moisture is of vital
importance, tillage could have a negative effect on soil water, because
by turning the soil, stored water is lost through evaporation. Continuous
tillage can also give rise to a loss of organic matter and, as a result, can
substantially reduce soil fertility and the ability of the soil to supply
nutrients. Obviously, the management techniques, which imply less
machinery needs, would cause less soil compaction and erosion
8
.
It is well known that the cover crops have direct and indirect effects
on soil properties, particularly on their capacity to promote an
increased biodiversity in the agro-ecosystem. The cover cropping is the
most suitable soil management practice to protect the soil surface from
erosion, to preserve the environment, to reduce production costs and to
enhance the quality of olive oil
2
. As also Corleto and Cazzato
4

concluded, we found that among the soil management practices, the use
of annual legume species appears to be more appropriate for soil
management than cereal species or weed cover, with the latter
contributing to higher water consumption and nitrogen uptake.
However, cover crops could compete with olive trees for minerals,
water and fertilizer if they are not well managed.
Considering weeds as strong competitors for water resources it is of
highest importance to evaluate the influence of the different soil
management practices on the composition and density of weeds
10
.
Compared with control (no intervention) all other methods showed a
strong significant effect on the reduction of
total number of weeds. All chemical and organic prac~ to the same
statistical group regarding the total number though it seems that
the best results were obtained by glyphosate. There was
evidenced a total action over i (Trifolium sp.(L.), Sonchus sp.
L., Xanthium spr Heliotropium europaeum (L.),
Centaurea solstitial^ sp. (L.), Cynodon dactylon (Pers.),
Bromus sp. (L.), A* (L.), Koeleria gracilis (L.)) and shrubs
(Rubus ulmifol: Dittrichia viscosa (L.)), apart from weed
Aram italicum \ L was not affected by glyphosate. Even by
grazing tfeers significant reduction of weeds, except the fact
that sh not affected at all. Due to that, a gradual increase
population was evidenced overyears. Organic mulching a good
option to reduce natural weeds, but one mighi that wheat straw
is used to carry large quantities of Triticum, Phalaris, Lilium
and other species, whici contribute to the increase of weed
number in olive ore In terms of olive production per plant,
chemical control provided similar results with cover crop and
follow Obviously the positive effect of herbicides was relatt:
reduction of weed population and minimizing the com
-
olive
trees for water reserves. Anyway, avoiding c herbicides
provides a two-fold benefit: the quality of die product is
superior and the ecological balance is preserve: systems which
involve an excessively intensive use of he can expose the soil to
severe erosion
1
.
Soil management practice seems to play a role to sust~ of olive
production. Mulching was the best method in t production
sustainability. It was the only method that significant difference
among years regarding the produc plant. Despite the trend of
gradual increase of production the first to the third year, all other
methods showed sign differences among years (Table 2). As a
matter of fatt differences regarding average weight of olive
drupes were significant. With the exception of control and
grazing, the a\ fruit weight cramped to almost the same statistical
group management practices and over years (Table 5 fact
confirms the previous conclusion that diffa on plant production
seem to be mostly d differences regarding the number of fruits se~
The influence of soil management practices limited
in terms of weed population density over (Table 4).
There were a larger number of weeds second year
versus the first one, but it seems due to weed biology
and/or weather cond: (rainfed) rather than the direct
effects of management practices. Generally speaking,
number of weeds was reduced in the third year,
remained unchanged in case of grazing, and was
increased (though not statistically signifi in case of
fallow.
Conclusions
The soil management practices influence the
production per plant and drupe oil content rainfed
growing conditions. Compared to co conventional
fanner practices, organic soil manag practices and
chemical control of weeds prof higher yield due to
reduced competition of olive
Table 3. Mean values of drupe weight (g) according to different soil
management practices over years (mean values, different letters indicate
significant difference at P<0.05).
Management Variant Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Conventional No intervention 321 d 334.5 bed 335.1
bed
Grazing 328.9 cd 334.6 bed 320.8 d
Fallow 345.7 abc 345.3 abc 348.2
abc
Chemical control Glyphosate 338.4 abed 342.9 abed 352.3 ab
Diuron 342.4 abed 340.4 abed 345.0
abc
Organic Cover crop 333.4 bed 337.2 abed 344.6
abc
Mulching 339.6 abed 348.6 abc 359.4 a
Table 4. Mean values of weed number (plants/m
2
) according to different soil
management practices over years (mean values, different letters indicate significant
difference at P<0.05).
Management Variant Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Conventional No intervention 296 be 553 a 400 b
Grazing 183 cd 183 cd 180 cde
Fallow 175 cde 68 defgh 102
defgh
Chemical control Glyphosate 7 h 28 fgh 14 gh
Diuron 81 defg 154 defgh 93 defgh
Organic Cover crop 151 defg 158 cdef 124
defgh
Mulching 44 efgfa 89 defgh 22 fgh
432
Journal of Food, Agriculture & Environment, Vol.9 (3&4), July-October
soil water reserves, thanks to reduced number of w eeds and proved
soil physical properties. Organic mulching and .iminous cover
crops seem to be the most sustainable practices :erms of year by
year production and nature preservation.
References
ufoy, G. 2001. The environmental impact of olive oil production
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433
Print ISSN: 1459-0255 / Online ISSN: 1459-0263






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