The revived olive industry dates to 1993 and the planting of an olive grove at Broke / Fordwich by Margaret & Graham White - Fordwich Grove. There was little available information about which varieties would do best in the Hunter's climate, so a "best guess" approach was taken.
| Kalamata | has proven difficult for several growers, and some have pulled their trees out and planted something else. Best suited to a frost free area towards to coast rather than inland valleys prone to extremes of temperature |
| Hardy's Mammoth | so far little or no crop from quite large trees. Disappointing. |
| Manzanillo | excellent for table olives, but prone to suck up moisture and not as good for oil |
| Sevillano | as Manzanillo, but also seems prone to fungal diseases |
| Azapa | excellent table olive. Not really regarded as an oil olive. Azapa is genetically related to Sevillano |
| UC13A6 | good sized table fruit. Excellent prospect, if prone to erratic cropping |
| Verdale | excellent table fruit, with mixed reports about it's suitability to yield economic amounts of oil |
| Mission | as Verdale. Too early to tell. |
| Frantoio | also known as Paragon, first class oil, good yields but needs attention in the grove |
| Correggiola | related to Frantoio, similar results as above. Very vigorous growers. |
| Koroneiki | promising oil olive, but too early to tell. Reputed to be difficult to harvest with machine pickers |
| Nevadillo Blanco | promising oil olive, but too early to tell. Some indication that is is prone to soft-nose if left to ripen to the fully black state, so perhaps best suited to picking early and green. |
If anybody has any further information or comments, I'd love to know more. Please e-mail me.