Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Friday 4 May 2018
Pruning olive trees is a balance of art, lore and science

By CAIN BURDEAU that." ''Cut branches that
TORRETTA, Sicily (AP) — shoot up." ''No, leave a few
Watching Giovanni Ca- shooting up."
ruso prune an olive tree is And on it goes.
like observing a mountain A look at the trees around
climber decide how to us made us even more
reach the next hand-grip in confused. Many were
a cliff. He chooses his path pruned so heavily that only
with deliberation. He even a few limp twigs were left
wears a helmet. dangling off main branch-
With a set of newfangled es. The sound of chain saws
tools and theories, this was routine.
35-year-old Sicilian biolo- Slowly, we gained con-
gist and self-made prun- fidence and speed. We
ing expert is working on his started with obviously de-
first commercial project to pleted dry sections, suckers
introduce the central Ital- and overlapping branch-
ian technique known as es, and then moved on to
the "polyconic vase" into what wasn't so obvious. It
Sicily's often remote and took hours to prune the big-
overgrown olive groves. ger specimens.
This method seeks to sculpt Caruso stood in a section
a tree into separate cone- This March 13, 2018 photo shows reporter and writer Cain Burdeau pruning an olive tree with of the orchard planted with
shaped sides, thus produc- shears and a small saw on a property his wife and he bought in Contrada Petraro in the mountains Nocellara del belice trees.
ing more olives that are of northern Sicily near Castelbuono. They looked nice to me. But
easier to pick. not to him.
"The cone's geometric anymore," lamented Gre- In the past four years, Caru- damage will I do if I cut "The trees lack leaves and
shape allows the most gorio Ugdulena, a descen- so has trained himself in the this branch instead of that there are many diseases,"
branches to be exposed to dant of the family that de- polyconic vase method. one? Will I kill a tree? Can I Caruso said. "Look around:
the sun," Caruso said. veloped the estate. He now does workshops climb into a tree to prune? It's surrounded by moun-
I thought about the over- His sister, Amalia, remem- in Sicily, where Ugdulena, How exactly should I cut off tains so there isn't any cir-
grown olive trees I bought bered when field hands and I, met him. a branch? culation, and there's a lot
a few years ago with my clambered up high ladders It is early April, the end of Add to this the contradic- of humidity." Humidity is
wife and two boys on a to prune, and boys carried a long pruning season for tory advice from friends bad for olives, he said.
property in Sicily. This was pots of tar to heal the trees' Caruso and also for my wife and local farmers, all ea- At his side was Giuseppe Lo
the first year we pruned fresh cuts. and me. We'd spent much ger to tell you what you're Presti, a 41-year-old agron-
them, nervously trying to "Many people have aban- of the past few months doing wrong: "Clear out omist and olive tree spe-
open them up to the sun as doned their olive orchards," learning to prune our long- the center." ''No, because cialist. Lo Presti stooped to
we'd learned from Caruso. inspect a dead tree.
Caruso wielded a chain "Look, this is what happens
saw mounted on an ex- when you don't cut right,"
tendable pole and pow- he said. Someone had cut
ered by a battery pack. into the trunk, allowing in-
Pruning in Sicily is mostly fections in.
done with regular chain Caruso moved on, his chain
saws, but also with hand- saw whirring into action.
saws and shears, as we had "The trick is to start from the
done. top; the apex controls the
He moved on to another plant," he said. "By pruning
tree. from the top, you can see
"Just looking at it, it seems how much light comes in."
to be a globe," he said. The new technique has
"We're going to try to make been met with skepticism
it a vase, which means we'll in the region, Caruso said.
cut out the center." Resting a foot on a wall
And within a few minutes overlooking the orchard,
he'd transformed it. he recounted how three
The location was redolent men stopped to criticize
of history: 6,000 olive trees him, an outsider with a nev-
on a former noble estate er-before-seen helmet. He
in Torretta, a valley town wears it because he works
near Palermo. The sprawl- from the ground and could
ing villa, once a monastery, This April 4, 2018 photo shows Giovanni Caruso pruning a large olive tree on a former noble es- be hit by falling branches
tate in Torretta near Palermo, Sicily. He is seeking to revive the estate's 6,000 olive trees – many of
recalls a Sicily of opulent which are diseased and suffering from poor management – by pruning them with a central Italian — he has a scar to prove it.
leisure and eccentric aris- technique known as the polyconic vase. "They shouted: 'No, don't
tocrats. cut that one! Cut that
To an untrained eye, the branch! Where are you
orchard could appear fine. Gregorio said with a sigh. abandoned, 40-odd olive of the heat, you should from?' It was quite a spec-
But a lot is going wrong, Ca- That's why he brought in trees. leave some branches to tacle," he said. "Everyone
ruso said. Many trees suffer Caruso, an energetic for- For beginners, pruning shade the center." ''Cut thinks they're the best, that
from neglect and disease. mer bersagliere (an elite ri- any tree can be daunt- off branches that hang to only they know (how to
"In this area, no one prunes fleman) in the Italian army. ing. Where to start? What the ground." ''No, don't do prune)."q