While strolling around Drynia, one observes that some of its residents continue to deal with olive cultivation. Visitors of Drynia, according to the time of the year they visit the village, will have the opportunity to see the farmers doing cultivation work which might include taking care of the ground, pruning the olive trees or even collecting the olives from the olive trees.
One of the first cultivating tasks olive cultivators need to perform is proper preparation of the ground by enriching it with nutritious ingredients and freeing it from weeds.
Also important for the productivity of the olive trees is their pruning, which takes place either in the beginning of spring or during the harvest. The pruning procedure involves cutting all unnecessary branches so that only the fruitful ones will remain on the tree.
As far as the irrigation of the olive trees is concerned, this must be done with extreme caution. Olive trees do not require frequent irrigation but proper irrigation during the flowering period, that being the spring months, is crucial both for the increase of productivity and the quality of the olives.
One of the tasks olive cultivators need to perform is the collection of the olives known as “louvisma”, which takes place from the end of October until the end of February. The traditional method of caning is used to collect the olives, although other modern methods involving machinery are also applied.
As it was mentioned above, caning is the traditional method used for collecting olives. This method involves “beating” the olive tree with a wooden stick so that the olives will drop and on the huge sheets that had previously been placed under the tree. Next, the olives are placed in large cases and taken to the olive-oil press for the production of olive oil.
Additionally, some olive cultivators follow the traditional method of multiplying the olive trees called grafting, meaning the attachment of a branch of olive tree into another tree. Finally, it is worth mentioning that the fructification of the olive trees is not imminent, since it takes three years after the tree has been planted for it to produce any olives.
Source:
Ionas Ioannis, Traditional Cyprus Professions, Nicosia, 2001, pp.487-497
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