I'm an olive and almond producer in Portugal. In preparation for this very serious issue, since that the only thing I can do is to minimize the risk of infection, I tell all personnel to spray bleach on trimming scissors for each tree, the case of high density orchards, and for every 10-15 trees (or each row) in super high density orchards. I also try to monitor for infection vectors like Cicadellidae, and for possib…
I'm curious: Are there growing concerns and stress about rain patterns (climate/weather), desertification and irrigation water rights?
I'm curious, what brought you to Hacker News? It's fascinating the variety of people who contribute here, and I'm wondering what would bring a Portuguese farmer to a site centered around technology and entrepreneurship. (I suppose I could equally ask why this site would be discussing a bacterial outbreak in Italian olive trees, and the answer could be "because it's interesting" to both questions.)
It is not uncommon to own olive orchards in southern europe (a family thing). I have olives too.
Olive trees are planted decoratively and for crops here, but they're messy trees to have in city neighborhoods.
> agriculture is becoming increasingly technological depends, the european CAP has subsidized old-style agriculture which has left many regions way behind, and the regulatory frameworkd is so tight that, despite the fact that many countries are producing a lot of research (on GMOs for example), it's not likely to ever be used. I wonder how big is technology adoption in Portugal
So far behind that there is still a local economy based around farm work and hedgerows for wildlife.
Both those things may be regarded by many people as putting them out in front.
I'm an olive and almond producer in Portugal. In preparation for this very serious issue, since that the only thing I can do is to minimize the risk of infection, I tell all personnel to spray bleach on trimming scissors for each tree, the case of high density orchards, and for every 10-15 trees (or each row) in super high density orchards. I also try to monitor for infection vectors like Cicadellidae, and for possib…
Are there any sensors you can use to monitor health of trees programmatically? "These plant defenses do not seem to hinder the movement of X. fastidiosa. Occlusion of vascular tissue, while a normal plant response to infection, makes symptoms significantly worse: as the bacteria itself also reduces vascular function, a 90% reduction of vascular hydraulic function was seen in susceptible Vitis vinifera." Some type of…
That wouldn't scale because of the range and topology of BLE. Solar-powered micropower 900 MHz modules with built-in microcontrollers would be a basis for a viable solution. 900 MHz carries much further for a given power and isn't as susceptible to attenuation due to foilage.
Source: did industrial 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz module testing, once upon a time.
To that I'd suggest reading https://lifehacker.com/the-most-and-least-fake-extra-virgin-... . Since then I've bought California olive oil and giggled at all of the Italian brands. About the article, my honest first thought was, "Does it matter? They already weren't selling olive oil in the first place, now they just have to pretend harder."
Interesting! Since that article is from 2011, I wanted to see if there was any follow-up research on that. Using the paper's title as a starting point on Google Scholar I could only find better techniques for checking, but no papers sampling many brands. Then I noticed that the PDF was hosted on "olivecenter.ucdavis.edu"[0]. Going to that website revealed no further research either. In fact, the research tab of their…
“Research” seems to be branch node, with live links only on the leaves, “Projects”, “Our Reports”, and “UC Olive Database". Which is a website fail, sure, but since the leaves are on the page navigation, not one that stops you from getting to the data (and since “Research” isn't a link on the nav bar, just a label, the only way to get to the broken page seems to be following breadcrumbs from one of the leaves.)
We (for small values of we) started early: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
Laws of gravity don't work in Italy either, Pope John XXI in 13th century had them declared null and void /heresy. That Pope that died when the roof collapsed on him. Seriously, Italy is an old fashioned country, full of corruption and cutting corners. Scientists do get in the way with facts and other nonsense :). That explains everything IMO.
> Laws of gravity don't work in Italy either, Pope John XXI in 13th century had them declared null and void /heresy.
This is a distortion of a distortion (the original distortion popularized by Stephen Hawking was that John XXI declared laws of nature in general, not the law of gravity as such, to be heresy.)
The actual fact is that John XXI declared the teaching of a contemporary faction that the laws of nature constrained the power of God was heresy.
People outside of Italy are probably not aware of how seriously they take the topic of olive oil over there. The label "extra vergine" increases the price so much that there is a huge economic incentive for fraud. To combat this they have a taste police (literally) that checks that olive oil samples are not secretly mixes of fresh and old oil together. They are... quite opinionated, as you can see this exchange from…
The French use regionalism with wine to control this without sounding... well let’s just say it: racist. I’m surprised there aren’t appellations for Italian olive oil, if they care so much about it being domestic.
I'm curious, what brought you to Hacker News? It's fascinating the variety of people who contribute here, and I'm wondering what would bring a Portuguese farmer to a site centered around technology and entrepreneurship. (I suppose I could equally ask why this site would be discussing a bacterial outbreak in Italian olive trees, and the answer could be "because it's interesting" to both questions.)
I really like Hacker News, and I usually read my tech-related news here first. Farming is kind of the family business, and I love it. I am also a physicist by training, and thus my interest in technology in general. Agriculture is becoming increasingly technological, and everything from farming gadgets to John Deere tractors hacking has come up many times. There are even some Plasma Physics applications to agricultur…
Wasn't expecting such an interesting comment here! So many links to read later! Just came here because I like olive oil
I don't know. Probably traditional reasons. For example, French wine is considered superior, but I find Greek and Italian wines at least as good (although I haven't really tried all that many of any type). I don't have a good source for this, but the way I always knew it is that, when it comes to olive oil, Spanish is considered best, followed by Greek, followed by Italian, then everyone else's comes next. I am Greek…
As I assumed, it's purely subjective. I would argue that almost no one can tell the difference between the highest quality olive oils from the major oil producing Mediterranean countries. So way I look at it is that Mediterranean olive oil > others.
On that we can agree. Then gagain, we're both Mediterranean :)
The first time I tried high quality olive oil was at at an Italian restaurant. The oil was delivered with a piece of freshly baked bread and a small container of salt flakes. When I tasted it I thought it was unreal. It was that good. I don't remember the restaurant or even where it was, but do remember the tasting experience!
>The first time I tried high quality olive oil >I thought it was unreal For those people who may be having trouble understanding the comparison, this reaction would be the same reaction as if we were tasting supermarket hummus and legitimately homemade hummus. One is McDonalds dry; the other is Michelin star silk.
Yes, exactly! The hummus comparison is spot on.
Another example: supermarket guacamole (that green weird-tasting paste) vs. guacamole from real avocados freshly made.