Effects of a Harvesting and Conservation Method for Small Producers on the Quality of the Produced Olive Oil

The production of ‘Premium’ olive oil depends in large part on the quality of the fruit. Small producers see themselves confronted with vast investments and logistic snags when they intend to optimize the harvesting. Today, manual harvesting devices promise less damaged fruit when compared to the tr...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Plasquy, Eddy, Florido Fernández, María del Carmen, Sola Guirado, Rafael Rubén, García, José M.
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Recursos:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
Repositorio:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
OAI Identifier:oai:idus.us.es:11441/114697
Acesso em linha:https://hdl.handle.net/11441/114697
https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11050417
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Cold storage
Manual inverted umbrella
Quality parameters
Sensory analysis
Olive oil
Descrição
Resumo:The production of ‘Premium’ olive oil depends in large part on the quality of the fruit. Small producers see themselves confronted with vast investments and logistic snags when they intend to optimize the harvesting. Today, manual harvesting devices promise less damaged fruit when compared to the traditional methods with nets while the use of a cooling room on the farm is suggested as a solution when the harvesting needs to be stretched out over several days. The use of a manual inverted umbrella during the harvest, together with a storage of up to 14 days at 5 ◦C, was studied for three cultivars (‘Arbequina’, ‘Picual’, and ‘Verdial’). Ten parameters of the produced oil were examined in two consecutive years together with an extended sensory analysis in the first year. The results underline the importance of the used harvesting and conservation method on the quality of the extracted oil, although the effect size of each factor varied in time and according to the cultivar. The results indicate that small producers with financial and logistic restrictions can obtain a high-quality product following the actions shown in this work, being able to compete in terms of quality in the market, either by combining both methods or by choosing the one that guarantees the best results given the cultivar and the specific storage time they need to consider.