Methodology

The crop monitor

The crop monitor on the Market Outlook watches the coming campaign's growing conditions. It is a reading of conditions, not a crop forecast: it cannot see how many olives the trees carry, only whether the weather is helping or hurting what is there.

Data. Weather observations come from Open-Meteo, refreshed daily at one representative growing point per Spanish region (Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura, Cataluña). Each region shows its last 30 days of rainfall and temperature against a seasonal baseline built from the 2019–2024 archive (a ±15-day window around the same day of year), current soil moisture at 3–9 cm from the same model, and the 7-day heat forecast. Soil-moisture states are described, not dramatised (Moist, Adequate, Dry, Very dry), and the bands are seasonal: a Spanish summer is dry by design, so “Very dry” in June–September is reserved for readings dry even by the standards of the month, while the score keeps its absolute soil component, because stress during the fill costs oil whether or not it is seasonal. A region not refreshed within ten days is dropped from the page rather than shown stale.

The conditions score (0–10). An anomaly index: it starts neutral and moves with the temperature anomaly, forecast heat (days at or above 38 °C), soil moisture, and rainfall against the seasonal norm, with the normal summer dry spell deliberately not punished. Anomalies are weighted by crop phenology, because the same heatwave does different damage in different months: flowering (April–June) weighs heaviest, then fruit development (July–September), harvest, and dormancy. Bands: 8+ Excellent, 6.5+ Good, 4.5+ Moderate, 2.5+ Poor, below that Critical, always written out and never carried by colour alone.

The campaign scorecard. Because a crop is decided by the whole year and not the last fortnight, each region also carries one grade per phase of the campaign: winter recharge (October–March, hydrological-year rainfall vs normal), flowering (15 April–15 June: heat over open bloom and water at equal weight, because they cost the crop in equal measure, with a soaked bloom capped rather than rewarded), oil fill (July–September; while running it defers to the daily score, which also sees soil moisture and the forecast), and harvest (October–November, rain over the picking window). A phase's verdict is frozen when the phase closes; a running phase is compared against the elapsed fraction of its normal, not the whole window. All of it is recomputed daily from the archive, so closed phases converge to the same numbers every run.

Estimates on record. The estimates panel is a record, not a forecast: each entry is a figure published by a named sector body, cited to its source, shown as stated. The final AICA production figure closes each campaign's record. OliveTerm publishes no crop estimate of its own; where the desk has a view, it appears as the labelled desk reading.