Working in Silent Wakes
FROM ABOVE
BENEATH & WITHIN
The canopies, dense with fruit and leaves as they stand in areas not as affected, if at all, by the plant bacteria Xylella fastidiosa, here stand void thereof; yielding a greyish landscape and patterned shadows from above on the blossoming grounds growing lush from beneath within wakes of human cultivation.
The olive oil producer Olio Claudio harvests Cellina di Nardò olives in an orchard severely affected by the immense spread of Xylella fastidiosa in the southern parts of the region of Apulia. This particular orchard is located in Castri di Lecce and is, its low fruit yield notwithstanding, harvested with the attitude ‘meglio di niente‘. The orchard right next to it, which is pictorially featured above and also it owned by Olio Claudio, remains with its secular plants in the wake of the plant bacteria currently uncultivated in its desiccated character. As does so many others.
Remains
Branches not withered as the plant bacteria cause clogging of the water vessels by which each plant become hydrated, still yield fruit. Leafy clusters too. And so, among desolated brown leaves, grey branches and undeveloped olives remain the vigorous ones. While most, fallen as they become as the harvesting team works its way from plant to plant shaking off its fruit, are collected and taken to the frantoio for the pressing of olive oil, others remain on the plant. Devoid of human presence, in the loudness of silent wakes, in due time, they will fall too.
Prime time as it should be, both in terms of season and time of the day, most boxes stand empty, the machinery turned off and the pressing facility much silent.
In the wakes of Xylella fastidiosa, the hundreds of quintals
of olives that used to be pressed into oil here on a daily basis, no longer grows, and the silent facility works in the wakes.
