Samanlı olive: characteristics, oil content and growing areas

Samanlı is the table variety of the area around Lake İznik — grown right next to Gemlik, in what counts as Türkiye's black table-olive heartland.

Samanlı in numbers

Source: Efe, Soykan, Cürebal and Sönmez (2016), Zeytin Kitabı. Fields the source leaves blank are shown as "—"; nothing has been estimated.

The right combination for the table

The three properties described for Samanlı — fleshy fruit, thin skin, small stone — are precisely the combination table olive growing looks for.

As the stone gets smaller the flesh-to-stone ratio rises, and in table olives that ratio is value directly. Much of Gemlik's reputation rests on its flesh-to-stone ratio of 6.4, and Domat's on its flesh share.

Thin skin lets the brine salt penetrate the fruit quickly. In thick-skinned cultivars processing takes longer.

Two cultivars from one district

Karamürsel is a district that has given its name to two local olive cultivars on its own: Samanlı and Karamürsel Su. The second produced the trial's largest fruit at 9.44 g.

That says something about the variety of the Marmara region: it is known for Gemlik, yet other cultivars are established there too — Samanlı, Karamürsel Su, Eğriburun, Edincik Su and İznik's Çelebi.

On the region's olive growing and price data: olive growing in Marmara.

What a narrow distribution means

A cultivar confined to a single district points to one of two things: either it does not perform elsewhere, or no commercial reason to spread it has arisen.

Since Samanlı's yield is described as “good”, the second is more likely. Three cultivars account for three quarters of Turkish production — Memecik 45%, Ayvalık 19%, Gemlik 11% — and against that background, spreading a local cultivar requires nursery production, market demand and promotion. None of these happens on its own.

Where it stands among measured cultivars

Its position on each axis is shown live in the comparison strip on this page, against every cultivar with a published figure. For the full ranking — and how that ranking is built — see olive variety rankings.

In short

With 250 fruits per kilo and 84% flesh, Samanlı is Marmara's local table variety. It sits in Gemlik's shadow: more than 80% of Marmara's olives are processed as black table olives, and most of that is Gemlik.

For the regional picture, see olive growing in Marmara.