What's eating my kalamata olive?

Kalamata olives, prized for their dark table-olive quality, are highly susceptible to olive fruit fly whose larvae devastate the flesh. Black scale insects produce sooty mould on stems, and olive lace bug stipples foliage. Verticillium wilt frequently follows root damage from borers. Trapping fruit fly adults from early summer is the priority defence.

Larvae tunnel through olive flesh, causing internal rotting; Kalamata's large, fleshy fruit is particularly vulnerable and losses can reach 80–100% without management. Deploy protein bait traps and mass-trapping systems from June; apply kaolin clay repeatedly through summer; spinosad bait applications target adults; harvest promptly at optimal ripeness.

Colonies coat woody stems; sticky honeydew leads to black sooty mould that coats fruit and foliage and is particularly damaging to table-olive appearance. Apply horticultural mineral oil dormant spray in winter to kill overwintering stages; prune out heavily infested wood; release or protect natural parasites such as Metaphycus wasps.

Leaf underside feeding causes grey to silver bleaching on leaves; chronic infestations reduce tree vigour and oil/flesh development in fruit. Spray leaf undersides with insecticidal soap or neem oil in spring; avoid excessive nitrogen which promotes soft, preferred growth; remove leaf litter where adults overwinter.