The Lucques is a

cultivar A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture ...

of olives grown primarily in

Languedoc The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France. Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

. It is primarily used as a green table olive. It can also produce high quality

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

, but this is hard to extract. Though vulnerable to certain

pests PESTS was an anonymous American activist group formed in 1986 to critique racism, tokenism, and exclusion in the art world. PESTS produced newsletters, posters, and other print material highlighting examples of discrimination in gallery represent ...

, it is relatively resistant to cold and drought.

Extent

The Lucques owes its French name to the tradition that it originated in the Italian province of

Lucca Lucca ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its province has a population of 383,957. Lucca is known as one ...

(''Lucques'' in French). Today it is primarily associated with southern

, particularly in the

Languedoc-Roussillon Languedoc-Roussillon (; oc, Lengadòc-Rosselhon ; ca, Llenguadoc-Rosselló) is a former administrative region of France. On 1 January 2016, it joined with the region of Midi-Pyrénées to become Occitania. It comprised five departments, and b ...

region and the

départements A department (, ) is an administrative or political division in several countries. Departments are the first-level divisions of 11 countries, nine in the Americas and two in Africa. An additional 10 countries use departments as second-level div ...

of Aude and

Hérault Hérault (; oc, Erau, ) is a department of the region of Occitania, Southern France. Named after the Hérault River, its prefecture is Montpellier. It had a population of 1,175,623 in 2019.protected designation of origin (PDO, or AOP in French) since 2017. It can also be found in

Northern Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and Australia.Ron Herbst, Sharon and Tyler Herbst,
The Deluxe Food Lover's Companion, 2nd edition
', Barron's Educational Series, 2015

Synonyms

Locally, this cultivar is known under a number of different names, including Lucquoise or Luquoise, Oliva Lucchese, Oliverolle, Olivier de Lucques, Olivier Odorant and Plant du Languedoc.

Characteristics

It is a cultivar of good strength, with a spreading

growth form Plant life-form schemes constitute a way of classifying plants alternatively to the ordinary species-genus-family scientific classification. In colloquial speech, plants may be classified as trees, shrubs, herbs (forbs and graminoids), etc. The sc ...

in a shape described as "a vase or a parasol". The leaves are elliptic-lanceolate, with a medium length and width. The olives are of medium to high weight. They have an elongated, asymmetrical shape, with a pointed apex and a truncated base. The stone is pointed at both ends, with few grooves and no

mucro A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, st ...

. Though the fruit comes into bearing early, its ripening is late. Picking is at the end of October or beginning of November, while the skin is a light green. It matures in December, and when fully mature the colour of the fruit is dark purple.

Processing

The Lucques is primarily used as a green table olive, and the fruit tastes meaty and sweet. Some compare it to fresh almonds and

avocado The avocado (''Persea americana'') is a medium-sized, evergreen tree in the laurel family ( Lauraceae). It is native to the Americas and was first domesticated by Mesoamerican tribes more than 5,000 years ago. Then as now it was prized for ...

s. It is a highly valued olive among gourmets. It can also be used for

, and the oil it produces is of excellent quality, but it is difficult to extract. It gives a medium oil yield. The smell of the oil has alternately been described as "almond", " green apple", and "

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

". The taste is sweet; to some, excessively so.

Agronomy

It is considered a productive cultivar, but depends on good quality soil and regular irrigation to give a high yield. The cultivar is self-sterile, so it depends on other pollinators. It is vulnerable to certain

, including the olive fruit fly,

sooty mold Sooty mold (also spelled sooty mould) is a collective term for different Ascomycete fungi, which includes many genera, commonly ''Cladosporium'' and ''Alternaria''. It grows on plants and their fruit, but also environmental objects, like fences, ...

and ''

Verticillium dahliae ''Verticillium dahliae'' is a fungal plant pathogen. It causes verticillium wilt in many plant species, causing leaves to curl and discolor. It may cause death in some plants. Over 400 plant species are affected by ''Verticillium'' complex. ...

''. On the other hand, it has a moderately good tolerance to cold and drought, although the tree suffered terribly in the cold winter of early 1956 when millions of trees were cut down all over the

Midi MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

References