determination of the best fruit harvesting time of two olive cultivars zard and dezful in fars province

this experiment was conducted to find the best harvesting time for two olive cultivars dezful and zard in fars province, iran. fruits were harvested in 10 days intervals from 11 september and their quantitative and qualitative characteristics were measured. results indicated that for canning olive, the best harvesting time for dezful cultivar was 23-31 october. at this time, fruits were in yellowish green color with 4.9g weight. the best harvesting time for zard cultivar was 10 september when fruits had 4.5g weight and yellowish green color. however, the best harvesting time for obtaining the highest olive oil was 12 november for dezful cultivar and 15 november for zard cultivar. the highest fruit oil percentages were 40% in zard and 46% in dezful cultivars. at these harvesting times fruit color was black.