When necessary, pruning trees reduces the canopy volume or leaf area index and helps to lower the water requirements of the olive by decreasing the ground cover coefficient.

Severe pruning of trees will also cause a drop in orchard production and during years of plentiful water supply, the trees are no longer the right size to achieve maximum production potential. This drop in production through excess pruning can be avoided by thinning the small shoots in order to reduce the leaf area index rather than by reducing the canopy volume since it takes less time to increase tree foliage than to increase tree size (Pastor et al. 1998).

When a drop in the soil water reserve occurs, the olive tree is able to reduce water consumption by the leaves. Leaves can lose up to 25% of their water content without causing irreversible damage (Dichio et al. 1994).

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