Wild olive

How to identify it

• Field ID: flip a leaf. A silver-white underside means feral olive.
• Dark green, dense evergreen canopy filling the gully. Not native bush.
• Small cream flowers, then olive-like fruit that birds and foxes carry for kilometres.

Why it is a problem

It forms a closed mid-canopy over as much as 80% crown cover, shading out native grasses, herbs and gum seedlings, so the gums above it become the last generation. It is spread by birds and by foxes, which carry the seed far from the parent tree. It also builds a continuous ladder of fuel from the ground into the tree crowns, so a fire that would have stayed low in the grass can climb into the canopy. In a gully that funnels fire uphill, that matters even more.

How to control it

Stem injection (drill and fill), a minimal-disturbance method that kills the tree in place with no soil damage and no machinery, so seed is not spread. On the land this is led by Danny Rohrlach of Minimal Disturbance Bushcare. Controlling olive is a legal obligation under the Landscape South Australia Act 2019, not a choice.

Where it is at Skye

Extensive through the gully and scattered across the slopes.

Look up control: Green Adelaide weeds.

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