Javier Fernandez-Salvador is the new director for the UC Davis Olive Center (North America’s leading olive oil institution) and we are very very lucky he has agreed to speak to us.
He came to Davis after 9 years at Oregon State University, including 5 years as Assistant Professor in the Extension Service where he specialized in small fruit and berries and (especially) olives, along with soil and plant nutrition and organic production.
At Davis, his goal is to modernize California table olive orchards while involving undergraduates in the use of the Olive Center’s own olive groves for experiments in olive oil production, super high density planting and different irrigation management techniques, which will become increasingly necessary as California becomes hotter and drier.
Wendy Temple, our adjunct Program Chair, chased Javier down in the hopes of learning what to do with her olives. But I think we will all learn a lot more than that!
Zoom links will arrive in your newsletter. And yes, we had hoped to be back to face to face meetings by now, but Omicron has put a crimp in that particular plan. Stayed tune for future developments around our Scion Exchange and grafting demos, now scheduled for February 12th.