TOW -- Texas Olive Wood

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Edgar

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Does anyone know of a source for Texas Olive Wood?

All the recent threads about olive wood prompted me to see if I could find any Texas olive wood, but so far, no luck.

Olives have been grown in Texas since the 1930's (maybe before), but the industry has really taken off in the last 20 years or so. I have seen some estimates of over 1 million olive trees in Texas.

Olive production really got started in the Texas Hill Country - near San Antonio & Austin with many orchards, some with several thousand trees. The soil & climate in the Texas Hill Country is apparently very similar to the Mediterranean & California olive production regions.

In recent years, olive production has spread to south and east Texas. I read about one olive orchard in Victoria County that is supposed to have about 300,000 trees.

Does anyone who lives in an area where some of these olive orchards are located know if it is possible to purchase olive wood cuttings? I'm hoping to avoid blind calling.

Thanks
Edgar
 
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robutacion

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Australia - SA Adelaide Hills
Does anyone know of a source for Texas Olive Wood?

All the recent threads about olive wood prompted me to see if I could find any Texas olive wood, but so far, no luck.

Olives have been grown in Texas since the 1930's (maybe before), but the industry has really taken off in the last 20 years or so. I have seen some estimates of over 1 million olive trees in Texas.

Olive production really got started in the Texas Hill Country - near San Antonio & Austin with many orchards, some with several thousand trees. The soil & climate in the Texas Hill Country is apparently very similar to the Mediterranean & California olive production regions.

In recent years, olive production has spread to south and east Texas. I read about one olive orchard in Victoria County that is supposed to have about 300,000 trees.

Does anyone who lives in an area where some of these olive orchards are located know if it is possible to purchase olive wood cuttings? I'm hoping to avoid blind calling.

Thanks
Edgar

Hi Edger,

Is obvious that I can't help you with the Texas Olive wood and I didn't know that Texas in the USA (Is also a Texas here in Australia...!:eek:) had so many Olive trees.

One thing that, you may take into consideration is that, if the trees are 20 or 30 years old, you may only find a little heartwood in the centre of the main tree trunk. The other thing is also the fact that, the Olive trees that are planted in recent decades, particularly or commercial "groves", the tree species have been genetically modified to improve the fruit quality, yield and three size/shape, they are made to, produce fruit and not wood. This mean that, the trees are a lot smaller "easier picking" are more suitable to automatic "shakers" harvesting tractors/machines design to grab the tree trunk and shake the life's out of it, while the fruit falls into a large umbrella that the same machine wraps around the tree before shaking it...!

I have had lots of these trees that I could have (full trees) that the owners after about 20 years waiting, decided that they would make more money planting something else so, the whole grove is ripped out with bulldozers and piled up and burnt. Unless you are very desperate, is not worse the trouble...!

What I'm trying to say is that, you may have some difficulty in get any Olive wood with any heartwood/grain from Texas unless there are older trees planted somewhere that are of the same gene as most Europeans Olive tree species. Trimmings from these grove Olive trees, will give nothing but sapwood...!

Curtis my know of a few old Olive trees and possibly who owns them, is worth the ask him...!

Good luck in your hunt...!

Cheers
George
 

maxwell_smart007

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I'm sure I have one or two blanks in my collection, which I obtained from someone in Texas a long while back. I'll have to dig through and check the labels, but if you want them, they're yours! :)

That being said, I have to find them first, and there's only one or two blanks! :)
 

Edgar

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Location
Alvin, TX 77511
Andrew, if you can find them, I would definitely appreciate getting them. I'm not looking for a lot, I just want to make a pen or two from TOW for my own collection.

Thanks Shawn, I'm hoping to avoid a lot of time on the phone if someone here knows the answer. If not, I will pursue those links.

Thanks George - good points & much appreciated. The same thing holds true for commercially planted pecan orchards. The wood from those trees doesn't hold a candle to native pecan wood.
 
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