15 Jan Effects of snow on olive trees
Α few pictures from the snowy days at Rhizoma Olive Farms. Temperatures during these days was less than 3 degrees for the whole day. This is a great gift for the trees since it helps them plan where to allocate resources for the coming season.
For a thorough analysis on the effect of sub-zero temperatures on aerial shoots of olive trees there is a great paper http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/…/3/558.full.pdf They researchers suggest that frost affects the cell membranes of the plants which become less permeable and even break. This gives rise to the rise of solutes which can then be measured to assess the impact of damage to the plant by measuring the electrical conductivity (EC) of the medium. EC measurements are an easy, cost effective and reproducible way of selecting olive genotypes cultivars for cold hardiness. Apparently, cultivars like Piqual, Cornicabra and Arbequina are the most frost-hardy cultivars in this study.