Il settore dell'olivicoltura da tavola in Italia: situazione e prospettive

The Italian table olive industry is almostcompletely located in the southern regions: Sicily and Apulia together account for about 2/3 of the entire national production. ‘Nocellara del Belice’,‘Nocellara etnea’, ‘Bella di Cerignola’ and ‘Ascolana tenera’ are the leading cultivars together with a large number of other local traditional varieties, often utilised for a double purpose (table olives and oil production).Although Italy is nowadays largely dependent (for about 60%) onto import from other Countries (mainly Spain, Greece and Morocco) the domestic production has been declining in the last thirty years and currently accounts for about 3-4% of the total world production against a value of about 10% of the period 1980/85.Nevertheless, some interesting examples ofspecialized production concentrations are still represented by the producing areas of the ‘Nocellara del Belice’, ‘Bella di Cerignola’ (syn. ‘Bella della Daunia’) and ‘Ascolana tenera’ which recently received the DOP (protected designationof origin) recognition.In this paper, besides the overall review of the Italian varietal platform and a brief description of the main cultivars, the advantages and the opportunities offered by the application of specialized cultural techniques are discussed, with special emphasis on the positive role of a moreappropriate and wide diffusion of irrigation(including RDI) and chemical fruit thinning.Potential of other cultural techniques such as fertilization, pruning and pest and disease control are also reviewed with reference to the possible role in fruit quality enhancement together with the needs for further development of the entire table olive industry and the R&D involved.