Olive

Olive (Olea europaea, zaitoon) is the long game. It is a slow, evergreen, near-immortal tree that turns the marginal, rain-fed hill ground of the Pothohar and the Balochistan highlands—land too dry and stony for thirsty fruit—into a crop of oil and table fruit that only improves as the tree ages. For a grower planting for the next generation, few trees reward patience like this one.

Where it thrives

Olive wants a true Mediterranean rhythm: warm-to-hot dry summers and cool winters. The Pothohar and Balochistan highlands give it exactly that. The catch most new growers miss is winter chill—olive needs a real cold spell to break bud dormancy and flower, and many cultivars require on the order of several hundred to over a thousand chilling hours; without enough cold the trees grow but barely fruit.¹ Just as important, high temperatures during flowering damage the crop, so the cool spring of the highlands matters.² The non-negotiable on the ground is drainage: olive hates wet feet and will sicken on heavy, poorly drained soil, but it grows on a wide range of well-drained ground.³ It is genuinely drought-hardy once established and moderately salt-tolerant, though deep drought still cuts the crop.⁴

Role in the system

Olive is a long-lived climax-stratum evergreen—the permanent backbone of a dryland food forest rather than a quick yielder. Because it is slow, it is planted early and grown up through the protection of faster pioneers and nitrogen-fixers, which shelter the young trees and build soil while the olive takes its time. In maturity its silver evergreen canopy holds the upper-to-mid layer year-round, casting light, dappled shade that an understorey can live under. Flowering is wind-pollinated, and this is the trait to design around: many olive cultivars are partly or wholly self-incompatible, so they set far heavier crops when a compatible pollinizer cultivar stands nearby.⁵ Plan a second variety into the planting from the start. The fruiting window is autumn, and tends to alternate-bear—a heavy year followed by a light one—which you partly even out through pruning. Prunings feed the chop-and-drop layer.

Growing it

Three decisions decide success. First, drainage—plant on a slope or mound and never in a pocket that ponds; this single call saves more olives than any other. Second, pollination—set at least two compatible cultivars so wind can cross them. Third, chill and site—match the cultivar’s chilling need to the coldest reliable winter you can offer, and accept that the warmest, lowest sites simply will not flower well. Space standard trees 5–7 m; water to establish and through severe drought, but err dry rather than wet.

What you get

Oil, table olives, or both, depending on cultivar, harvested in autumn. The economics are patient: light crops in the early years building to decades of yield from a tree that can outlive its planter, with value added through pressing or curing on-farm.

Sourcing notes

Choose cultivars to a job—high-polyphenol oil types, Spanish oil types, or dual table-and-oil types—and always plant a compatible pollinizer alongside. A grafting knife lets you topwork or add a pollinizer to an existing tree, and stackable harvest crates handle the autumn pick. See selling from the farm gate and passing the farm on for the long-horizon economics.

Sources

1. Ben Laya, S. et al. (2022). “Olive Bud Dormancy Release Dynamics and Validation of Using Cuttings to Determine Chilling Requirement.” PMC / Plants.
2. Torres, M. et al. (2017). “Olive Cultivation in the Southern Hemisphere: Flowering, Water Requirements and Oil Quality Responses to New Crop Environments.” PMC / Frontiers in Plant Science.
3. University of California Cooperative Extension. “Olive Production.” UC Agriculture & Natural Resources.
4. García-Inza, G. et al. (2025). “Drought-Induced Changes in Morphology and Phenology of Olive Trees (Olea europaea L.).” PMC / Plants.
5. Marchese, A. et al. (2019). “Self-Incompatibility Assessment of Some Italian Olive Genotypes (Olea europaea L.).” PMC / International Journal of Molecular Sciences.