THE GERMINATION OF THE OLIVE SEEDS.

At the time of planting olive trees the first thing that you must to do is do a design. Then mark the earthly with a stake or other means where we want to make the hole to put the olive tree. These holes can be made to dig, or by hand, according to the ground and the time when it going to do. The olive must be buried in the pit at most about 5 cm.
Then when the hole is due tapemos rammed earth so that no air pockets remain. These trees must be watered with little as 50 liters per foot. Then go to refurbishment of the land before planting olive trees must remove the roots of any trees or shrubs, building terraces, leveling the land, and so on. Once the land is put up is advisable to plant in that spot for one or two years cereals or legumes,to completely eliminate the roots, so as not to cause problems for the trees. To the sound destruction of weeds may be necessary to use a plow in depth. After plowing should again all the land for the smooth growth of the trees that are going to plant. In the last plow that is done should be cast phosphorus and potassium fertilizer to be used in the early years of growth by the tree. It is advisab
before using fertilizers, as do an analysis of the soil.
Then we can plant the olive seeds in that holes.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Olive tree is the only species of its botany family that has got edible fruit. Its main characteristics are:
Its leaves: Are arranged in a manner opposite between them, it is lanceolate, yp about 8 cm in length. Its edges are intact, and ave mucromado apex, the leaves are helded by a small tail. The colour of the leaf is whitish on te underside and summer. The beam of olive leaf has a bright green.
Flowers: Are veri small and are joined in inforescences. They ave fout white petals and a strong fragrance. These flowers have small calyx, and an only-one-piece corolla, with the tube very short and the limbo divided in four lobes.
Trunk: Is short, thick, twisted, light gray, irregular, full of bumps and cracks, especially as it becomes larger.
The fruit:Olive oil is extracted from de olives, and it is a important part of the mediterranean diet. The olives, drupe in Latin, are oval and inside of them appear a single bone. The olives have different sizes, depending on the variety from which they come, but usually range between 1.2 and 3 cm. The olives are in a green top, but as they mature, they become black.

BLOSSOMING AND FRUIT BEARING SEASONS.

The olive tree blooms around the manth of May and during the summer and fall fruits are getting fat and changing its color from green to black. Oil reached its matury by early autumn but it was not until late November or December when thy are collected, and then the excellent olive oil, is so important in the Mediterranean diet, is estracted

TYPES OF OIL.

OLIVES OIL VIRGIN

OLIVE OIL EXTRA VIRGIN: This type of oil is the best of all the types and it contains oleic acid. Apart from this type there are some mose:
- MONOVARIETAl: It is obtained trom only one type of olive.
- COUPEGES: It is obtained from more than one variety.
- PROTECTED ORIGIN DOMINATION: It is obtained from an olive that is obtained in a concret geografic zone.
OLIVE OIL VIRGIN: It has a free acid, expressed in oleic acid.
OLIVE OIL LAMPANTE: It has this name because in ancient times it was used the lamps of the houses to iluminate. It has the same characteristics than the olive oil virgin but this has more than 2 grandes and the olive oil virgin has less than 2 grandes.


OLIVE OIL REFINED

These olive oil is obtained by the refination of the olive oil virgin, and his acid is free, expressed in oleic acid.



OLIVE OIL COMPOUNT OF OLIVE REFINED AND OLIVE OIL VIRGIN

It is a mixture of olive oil refined and olive oil virgin, different at the olive oil lampante. It is cheeper than the other oils and it is the most spent in Spain.


OLIVE OIL OF ORUJO AND RAW
It is obtained by a treatment with solvent from the orujo olive oil orujo's, its acid is expressed by oleic acid it can't pass 0.5 per 100g.


OLIVE OIL OF ORUJO REFINED

It is obtained by the refination of the orujo's olive oil of olive crude

HARVEST METHODS

The most traditional method consists in taking the olives one by one by hand or with a rake. The olives are put into a container which the farmer has hanging. When it is full it's empty into a trailer. To reach the highest branches the farmer uses ladders.

• Advantages.- we don't cause any damage to the fruits and we don't get them dirty.


• Drawback.- it's slow process and the productivity of a person is low.

Other method, and one of the most common harvest method, consist in extending nets along the ground. Later you hit the tree with a stick to make the olives fall into the net. To be sure that you've got all the fruits, later we use a tractor with a mechanical arm which catch the tree trunk and shakes it. When we throw the olives to the ground, some branches fall too, and we must separate them of the olives. When we only have olives in the nets, we use a crane that catches the nets and we put the olives in a triler to transport them.

• Advantages.- It's very fast and easy, and you take all the olives.

• Drawback.- we can damage the tree.
  

DIFFERENT TYPES OF OLIVE'S

Some types of olives are these:

• Arbequina.- We can find it in "Aragón" and "Cataluña". It has sweet taste. It can be redor green. It's small and rounded.



• Blanqueta.-It's from the north of "Alicante". It's green and it is a bit bitter and a bit hot.



• Cornicabra.-It's in "Toledo". We eat it when it is mature. Its colour is dark green.



• Empeltre.-It is in"Aragón" like the arbequina. It's very aromatic and sweet.


• Hojiblanca.- It's from "Málaga","Sevilla" and "Córdoba". They're black and small.


• Picual.- It is in "Jaen". It's big and elongated. It's black.


• Manzanilla villalonga.- It's from "Valencia". It is big and rounded. Its colour is black.

INTRODUCTION

This blog is for "Trabajo monográfico". It's about the olives. I'm going to publish all the things that we did in the first and the second term. In the first term we looked for information about the olive tree and the olive( characteristics, location, types, harvest methods, recipes...) In the second term we did some experiencies in the laboratory with olives(we extracted oil, made soap...) I hope you like te blog.

OLIVE'S ANATOMY

The olive tree fruit is called olive. It is also called drupe, and it can be of different colours (green, red or black) and sizes (from 1'5 cm to 3cm). We can divide it anatomically in two parts: the flesh and the bone. The bone represents approximately the 30% of the total weigh of the olive and it can't be eaten. The flesh is the part that we eat and we extract the oil from it.

INDEX

-Olive tree main characteristics.

• Botanic classification.
• General characteristics.
• Blossoming and fruit bearing seasons.
• The germination of the olive seeds.
• Olive tree distribuition in Spain and Europe.

-Olives, the olive's tree fruit.

• Olive's anatomy.
• Different types of olives.
• Harvest methods.
• How to prepare olives to eat? Different recipes.

-Olive oil.

• Industrial olive oil extraction. What is an olive oil mill(almazara)?
• Different types of olive oil.
  

LABORATORY EXPERIENCES

Practice 1: Determination of the quantity of water

All living beings are made in a big percentage by water. To determine the percentage of content in water of the olives we will do the following steps:

We take 2 olives, we weight them, we cut them( to evaporate water faster) and we put them in a container to dry them later.

Fresh weight: 9.270gr

We put the container with the 2 olives on a stove and we leave them there during a week and we wait that they dry off well.

Weight: 4.8gr

Difference of weight will correspond to water content: 4.47gr

The percentage of water that have the olives is 48'22%

Practice 2: Reductors glucids determination

The glucids are the main substances that the plants use to take the energy to do their vital functions. Among the glucids there are sugars and polysaccharides(like the starch that is the reserve substance of the plants)
In this practice we are going to guess through chemical methods the sugar present in the olive pulp.
1.- We take an olive, we get out the pulp and we separate the bone.
2.-We cut the pulp in small pieces and we put it in a recipient.
3.-We crush it.
4.-Then we put water to make it more fluid.
5.-We put the paste in a test tube.
6.-With one pipette we put two cm3 of Fehling A in a test tube.
7.-In these test tube we add 2 cm3 of Fehling B, and we obtain a blue mixture.
8.-We put this solution in the test tube with the olive and we mix it.
9.-Then we heat the mixture with a gas lighter.
10.-If the mixture becomes red the presence of the reductors glucids(glucose) is shown.

Results: It has glucose because the mixture is red.

Practice 3: determination of starch.

Among the sugars in the plants there are polysacharide glucids as the starch, the substance that we're going to extract from the flesh. This substance is the reserve of many plants.

1.- To get a sample to comparewe get a potato, that is very rich in starch.After cutting it in a half and making some incisions, we throw some drops of lugol.It colours the starch to purple.
2.- We get now an olive, we take the pulp off and we crush it.
3.-Once the flesh of the olive is crushed, we throw some drops of lugol on it.
4.-Conclusions: It has starch because it turns purple.

Practice 4: Determination of protein.

To determine the presence of two proteins perform this experiments:

Xantoproteic reaction

1.-Extracting oil from seeds of several bones.
2.-Let them dry for a week.
3.-Take the dried seeds of olives and crushed them in a container.
4.-Once crushed the cast in a test tube, add 1 cm3 of concentrated nitric acid(HNO3)
5.- Heat the test tube with a gas lighter. If there are proteins, they react with nitric acid and the sample will turn yellow.
6.-Results: it has proteins because it turns yellow.

Biuret reaction

The name of the reaction is that because of the proteins and how them come into contact with soda forming a substance called biuret.

1.-Take various seeds and dried crushed olives in a bowl.
2.-Once crushed the cast in a test tube, add 1 cm3 of 20% sodium hydroxide. Biuret will be formed only if tthere are proteins.
3.-Then add a few drops of cupric sulfate diluted to 1%.
4.-If the sample turns purple color that must be reacted with biuret to cupric sulfate, demostrating that protein.
5.-Results: it has proteins because it turns purple.

Practice 5: determination of lipids


We do some experiments:

Insolubility in water:

1.-We take several olives and we cut the flesh in very small pieces.
2.-We throw the flesh in a test tube and we add more or less 5 cm3 of water(up to enrasate the test tube).
3.-We shake the tube to mix and we stop to rest.
4.-After it we can observe how these appear small yellow bubbles due to the insolubility of the fat oil in the water and due to the minor density it floats over the water.

Solubility in solvents organics:

1.- We take the flesh of a olive and we cut it.
2.-We put the flesh in a test tube and we add 2cm3 of ether.
3.-We stop to rest the mix(ether with oil) and we put it in a sump of porcelain or glass.
4.-We evaporate the liquid with fire and we obtain some bubbles of oil.


Practice 6: oil extraction

In these practice we compare with the process of an industrial oil mill in the oil extraction, but in the laboratory.
1.-Crushing:
We take 100 olives and we remove the stone to them. We grind the pulp of the olives with a beater(in the industrial oil mill the olives are crushed with mills or metallic crushing machines).
2.-Beaten:
We put a little cold water to them. Slowly, we remove the paste with a spoon , while we heat it. Doing this the extraction of the oil will be easier.
3.-Pressed:
We put a strainer on a precipitated glass. We spill carefully the paste on the strainer to separate the liquid of "orujo"(solid part). In the industrial oil mill "orujo" is separated with a system of presses or by centrifugation.
4.-Decantation:
We leave in a place during one week so that separate by movement. The process have three different phases: first it is the oil, second is "alpechín" and third it is "orujo" remaining, all good differentiated at first.
5.-Separation of the oil:
With a pipette, we extract carefully the oil to finish separating it of some remainders and that appeared clean.

Practice 7: saponificaton's reaction

The saponification is a chemical reaction between a lipid and a base. The oily acids of the lipids are difficult to hidrolice but they can be broken very easy if the lipid is in a basic enviroment.

Oil+soda=Glycerin+soap

1.- The original recipe for make soap recommends to use 6 l of oil,5 1/2 l of water and 1 kg of caustic soda(NaOH).
2.- However we are going to remake the calculations to make soap with only 2 ml of oil.

To do it, start calculating the quantity of water that we're going to need in the relation with the oil

6000ml-5500ml
2ml-x ml

x=1'8ml

Calculate now the quantity of soda in the relation with the water:

5500ml-1000gr
1'8ml-x gr

x=0'33 gr

3.-Realice in a test tube the solution of soda and water with the calculated quantities. We remove it until the complete solution of soda.
4.-Later we add 2 ml of oil and we continue moving slowly until the soap is formed.
5.-We extract the soap of the tube and we put it in a Petri's plate and we model it like a bar. We wait until it finish solidifying.
6.-After extracting the soap we add water in the tube and we shake it. The abundance of lather indicates us that there is a bit of soap.