Olive growing in Bursa

Olive growing in Bursa concentrates around Gemlik, İznik, Orhangazi and Mudanya, where the olive is grown as a monoculture — alone in the field rather than alongside other crops.

The province gave its name to Turkey's best-known table variety: the Gemlik olive, registered in 2005 as one of the first olive geographical indications.

⚠ In parts of Marmara exposed to northerly winds the trees suffer cold damage from time to time; temperature thresholds matter in this region.

Bursa is the most table-oriented of the six: 61% of the 2024-25 crop went to table use, against 6-34% elsewhere. Bursa's olives go to the table, not the press.

The technical consequence shows in the extraction rate: 4.4, the lowest of the six. Table varieties are selected for low oil content; in table-olive quality criteria the desired oil content is already low to moderate.

Tree numbers rose 23.5% over eleven years (9.6 → 11.8 million). Intensive Gemlik planting under certified-sapling support is one driver — and in a single-variety layout the pollinator question becomes important.