HISTORICAL DATA
The olive is a symbol of peace, victory, immortality, euphoria, peace, protection, fertility, a divine gift. Tree of goodness associated with rebirth and light. For the ancient Greeks it was a symbol of the Olympic ideals, peace, wisdom and victory. That is why the award that the Olympian received was the kotinos, a wreath made of an olive branch. In ancient Egypt it was believed that the goddess Isis, wife of Osiris, held the secret to the cultivation of the olive. Olive oil is a religious good. The olive tree was also symbolically associated with other deities, mainly deities of vegetation and fertility.
The first mention of this sacred tree is in Homer’s Odyssey, where among the many trees in the gardens of the king of Corfu Alkinou, enormous olive trees are included. After all, Odysseus covered his nakedness with an olive branch when he met Nausicaa.
So this mythical and historic tree, the Corfu olive tree (olea europea), forms the large ecosystem that dominates the nature of Corfu . A tree that reaches even 25 meters in height, with a twisted trunk. The Romans who occupied the island for five centuries, valued the olive oil of Corfu as one of the best in the Roman Empire.
After the destruction of Corfu in 1537 by Suleiman the Magnificent, where most of the Corfu vineyard was uprooted, the Venetians ordered and financed the planting of olive trees, thus intensifying olive cultivation on the island. The Venetian Senate in 1623 issued a decree for all its Venetian possessions from Dalmatia to Crete, according to which it obliged all new and old inhabitants of Istria, Dalmatia, Albania, Corfu, Zakynthos, Cephalonia, Ithaca and Crete within a period of two consecutive years to cultivate the olive trees that were on their land and to graft (center) them, turning the wild olives into tame and fruitful trees. At the same time, around the middle of the 17th century, the Senate tried to entice the people of Corfu by paying them 42 chekinia for planting every 100 olive trees.
In the 18th century, monoculture of olives prevailed in Corfu, which was in line with the interests of Venice, as throughout the 18th century Corfu was the main supplier of olive oil to the Republic of Galinotatis. The Republic allowed the export of olive oil only to Venice. For most of the 20th century, the island of Corfu was an area dependent on the primary sector. The economy of Corfu was mainly oriented towards the cultivation of the olive tree, which ended up absorbing most of the labor force and commercial capital of the villages and the city.
CORFU PRODUCTIVE OLIVE GROVE
Corfu today can be characterized as a large nursery of the productive and at the same time mythical olive tree as approximately four million olive trees are cultivated on the island. Olive trees and olive groves participate in a variety of ways in shaping and maintaining the Corfu landscape productively, aesthetically, protectively. Especially the centuries-old olive groves give an unreal feeling with the endless embossed shapes and strange designs they carry on the trunks and branches. their.
The Corfu olive grove currently constitutes 60% of the arable land. Grey-green hills stretch from the coast of the island towards its highest peak, Pantokrator. All almost covered with olive trees, tall and multi-branched, tangled with each other without any arrangement as if they grew by themselves and were left to their fate.
Why the Corfu farmers adopted the excessively large size of the olive trees cannot be said with certainty. Probably we could cite some reasons, such as the per tree subsidy of the Venetians, which led to very dense plantings and (combined with the vigor of the variety) resulted in the trees growing in height. Another reason may be the observation that the lower parts of the crown are more susceptible to fungal diseases. Perhaps the need for the exploitation of the soil of the olive grove with co-cultivation or with grazing of domestic livestock animals completes the assumptions. But even today, three thousand years after Homer, the Corfu olive trees are enormous.
The heterogeneity of the olive grove, in addition to the distribution in terms of soil relief, is also observed in age. A large part of the olive grove, about 60%, consists of tall, centuries-old trees with cracks or cavities in the trunk, a significant percentage of about 30%, consists of trees aged 30-100 years with a solid trunk and the remaining 10% are the new ones plantations.
The above figures are typical of the size of the Corfu olive grove, where the average production of olive oil amounts to 15,000 tons per year.
CENTURIES OLD AESTHETIC OLIVE GROVES
The huge trunks of the trees are full of holes, hollows and protrusions creating real living sculptural monuments. The most impressive centuries-old aesthetic olive groves that can be found in Corfu today are located in:
Lefkimmi
Argyrades
Chlomos
Ag. Deka – Stavros – Strongili mountain range
Pagoi – Magoulades – Kavvadades line
Lafki – Ag. Panteleimonas – Episkepsi line
Kassiopi – Sinies – Gimari – Nissaki – Ag. Marcos – Korakiana line
Aleimatades – Makrades -,Krini – Lakones line.