Science tries to find a cure for dying olive trees
Where, less than five years ago, a plantation of centuries-old olive trees stood, bare skeletons of trunks now occupy the fields. A deadly bacteria is attacking the trees and threatening an ancient agricultural and economic activity in Italy and other southern European countries. It is now up to science to find a solution to the problem.
In the hands of the same family of olive oil producers for almost five centuries, four thousand olive trees were suddenly infected by a bacteria called Xylella Fastidiosa and the trees began to dry up.
Giovanni Melcarne is one affected olive oil producer. “My production decreased by around 80% in just three years. This disease has completely destroyed the landscape and our production. Any eventual recovery will be very slow,” he laments.
The ruined plantation is now a research field for researchers and students from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Iran.
They are all part of a European research project that aims to establish early diagnostic tools and share knowledge to better tackle the problem.
“The sooner we are able to identify the disease, the more likely we are to be able to tackle it. This is the first action. The second is to share scientific knowledge. Because the fight against the disease must be multidisciplinary. We have to combat it not only from a biological point of view, but also using tools from the fields of sociology, economics and biotechnology”, says Maroun El Moujabber, agronomist and coordinator of the CIHEAM Bari/Cure FX project, funded by the European Union.
So far there is no cure for the disease. Early diagnosis and pathogen monitoring tools have been developed and are being tested to prevent spread. But the investigation continues.
“The bacteria is now considered endemic in the affected regions. This means that it is no longer possible to eradicate or eliminate it. Therefore, we need to learn to live with it. Now we have to develop resistant plants, or those with low susceptibility to the disease”, reveals Franco Valentini, agronomist at CIHEAM Bari.
Phytopathologist Donato Boscia is a specialist in the disease, works at the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and explains that it is “a bacterium that colonizes and acts exclusively within the xylem vessels. It blocks water and mineral salts from the roots to the leaves. Everything happens inside the tree, which makes it more difficult for us to deal with the disease.”
A bacteria that could forever change the landscape of southern Italy.
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