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Fruit Produce Facts English
Olive
Recommendations for Maintaining Postharvest Quality
Carlos H. Crisosto, Elizabeth J. Mitcham, and Adel A. Kader
Maturity & Quality
Maturity Indices Green olives. Size and color (even, pale green with a minimum of whitish spots (lenticels) through a straw color. An olive is considered mature if it exudes a characteristic white juice when squeezed. Green olives. Color; freedom from mechanical damage, shrivelling, surface blemishes, scale and other insect injury, and decay. These olives are processed according to the California black-ripe style or Spanish green style canned olives. Maturity & Quality Photos
Title: Ripeness Stages Photo Credit: Don Edwards, UC Davis
Temperature & Controlled Atmosphere
Optimum Temperature 5-7.5°C (41-45.5°F); temperatures below 5°C (41°F) cause chilling injury of fresh olives. 90-95%
To calculate heat production multiply ml CO2/kg·hr by 440 to get Btu/ton/day or by 122 to get kcal/metric ton/day. Less than 0.1 (green olives) or 0.5 (black olives) µl ethylene/kg·hr at 20°C (68°F). Olives produce very little ethylene but are moderately sensitive to ethylene action above 1 ppm (loss of green color and flesh firmness).
Note: The above information is for fresh green olives; fresh black olives should be processed as soon after harvest as possible. Temperature & Controlled Atmosphere Photos
Title: CA Effects Photo Credit: Don Edwards, UC Davis 
Title: CO2 Injury Photo Credit: Don Edwards, UC Davis 
Title: SO2 Injury Photo Credit: Don Edwards, UC Davis
Disorders
Physiological and Physical Disorders Nailhead. This disorder is characterized by surface pitting and spotting. It results from the death and collapse of epidermal cells, which create air pockets underneath the fruit skin. Symptoms are observed on olives kept at 10°C (50°F) for 6 weeks or longer or 7.5°C (45.5°F) for 12 weeks or longer. Carbon dioxide injury. Symptoms (internal browning and increased decay incidence and severity) result from exposure to more than 5% CO2 for longer than 4 weeks. Postharvest diseases occur if the olives have been chilled (exposed to temperatures below 5°C=41°F), mechanically damaged, not cooled promptly to the optimum temperature range of 5 to 7.5°C (41 to 45.5°F), or exposed to undesirable atmospheres (above 5% CO2 and/or below 2% O2). Disorders Photos
Title: Chilling Injury of 4 Cultivars(1) Photo Credit: Don Edwards, UC Davis 
Title: Temperature & Chilling Injury (2) Photo Credit: Don Edwards, UC Davis
Date
August 1996 |
Use of Materials
The UC Postharvest Technology Center grants users permission to download textual pages (including PDF files) from this World Wide Web site for personal use or to reproduce them for educational purposes, but credit lines and copyright notices within the pages must not be removed or modified.
Except for these specified uses, no part of the textual materials available on the UC Postharvest Technology Center Web site may be copied, downloaded, stored in a retrieval system, further transmitted or otherwise reproduced, stored, disseminated, transferred or used, in any form or by any means, except as permitted herein or with the University of California's prior written agreement. Request permission from UC Postharvest Technology Center. Distribution for commercial purposes is prohibited.
The information in this fact sheet represents our best understanding of the current state of knowledge at the time of the latest update, and does not represent an exhaustive review of all research results. Links to any of these UC Postharvest Technology Center pages are permitted, but no endorsement of the linking site or products mentioned in the linking page is intended or implied by such a link.
How to Cite
Author(s) names. Initial publication or update date (located at the top). Title. Link to the specific Produce Fact Sheet webpage (Accessed date)
Example: Cantwell, M. and T. Suslow. 2002. Lettuce, Crisphead: Recommendations for Maintaining Postharvest Quality.
http://ucanr.edu/sites/Postharvest_Technology_Center_/Commodity_Resources/Fact_Sheets/Datastores/Vegetables_English/?uid=19&ds=799 (Accessed January 18, 2014).
