A few months ago there was a guy on a local gardening radio show talking about commercial olives in Oregon, probably one of the outfits appearing on page one results of Google olives+commercial+oregon. olivesfororegon.com looks promising and is in the Willamette Valley.

The radio guest was probably Mr. Durant of Oregon Olive Mill in Dayton. oregonolivemill.com

Note that although old olive trees are to be seen in California there are none in the Willamette Valley.

The varieties that are well-known in California would not be suitable for the WV. I would try 'Arbequina' - which is actually starting to show up in Oregon nurseries - if you want fruit for pressing oil, and perhaps 'Maurino' for table fruit.

Thanks for everyone for their comments. I have Arbequina, and several other varieties. Time will tell!

I'm familiar with the idea that certain ones are more hardy, 'Arbequina' for instance is being depicted as taking 0F. And so on. But, when you are talking about commercial orchards, you want something that does well enough every year to pay its way. As it is you have to wait years for the trees to get up to full production. Subzero winter temperatures have been recorded at major weather stations throughout the valley, including -3F at the international airport near Portland.

I bought my retiring boss an Arbequina in the fall of 2007. She lives in Ololla, close to Gig Harbor. I'm not familiar with the area but I assume it's balmier than SE Olympia where I live. It succumbed to the December 2009 cold snap. Maybe they get hardier if allowed to establish for a few years...

The folks at One Green World do promote olives for NW Oregon.

OGW Olives

Honestly if you want to learn about growing olives in the Willamette Valley,
check out www.oregonolivetrees.com a wealth of information is on that site.

Here is a link that might be useful: Oregon olive trees

Note that the first narrative statement on the above site is that they want people to plant the trees in spring. Planting in spring only would be because the trees are not really hardy here, with it being feared that fall plantings would freeze out. Genuinely hardy stock can and should be planted in fall, to take advantage of the superior physiological, soil and weather conditions at that time.

An exception is bare-rooted stock, which amounts to cuttings due to the damage to the fine roots that occurs during commercial operations.