Olive growers have had increasing difficulty. in getting their crops harvested by conventional hand-picking methods, not only in California but also in Spain and Italy. Over the past 30 years, many University of California workers have participated in research to develop mechanical harvesting of olives in California. Intensive research has also been conducted in Spain and Italy.

This work was supported in part by grants-in-aid from, the Olive Administrative Committee, Federal Marketing Order No. 932, and the Agricultural Division, CIBA-Geigy Corp., Greensboro, North Carolina. Mechanical tree-shaking equipment and operator was supplied by the Orchard Machinery Com pany, Yuba City, California. Messrs. Shi-magi, Pareign, Oberti, and Erickson, and the Maywood Olive Co. kindly permitted the use of their orchards for part of the trials. Mr. Elton Develter, Maywood Olive Co., processed the olive samples reported in this study. Lyndon Brown, Joe Osgood, and G. S. Sibbett, Farm Advisors in Icings, Tehama, and Tulare counties, re spectively, assisted in field trials.