Rainfall will dictate the upcoming olive harvest in Croatia

The rain will decide what the olive growing season will be like in Croatia and whether olive oil prices will rise. Rain at least one month before the harvest will save the remaining fruits. However, it is already too late in some locations where olives have fallen from branches due to the long-term drought. “The olives turned black and fell,” said Vito Prtenjača, an olive grower from Polača in northern Dalmatia. ​“Due to the drought, the pits did not become woody, which is a sign that the accumulation of oil has not even started.” The first impediment to this year’s harvest phase came during flowering and fertilization when extremely high temperatures occurred. There has been no heavy rainfall since February in the vast majority of Croatia’s olive-growing areas, which stretch along the Adriatic Sea from Savudrija in Istria to Prevlaka in the extreme south of Dalmatia. There was even less precipitation on the coastal islands. “The droughts are such that it is a miracle how the ...