“We continuously introduce new organisms … with climate change it will be more and more difficult to manage them.”
Pierfederico La Notte, plant epidemiologist
The problems with plant pests and plant diseases are increasingly challenging. More and more so-called non-native pests are appearing. The prevailing assumption was that this is the result of the global flow of goods and services, including, of course, plants-based grown food. But in recent years, scientists have also found that climate and weather changes originally contribute to the successful development of non-native plant pests and non-native rot diseases.
A sky-high example that confirms this is the below story of the Plant Apocalypse, which testifies to how new diseases are destroying EU trees and crops.
FROM ANCIENT OLIVE GROVES TO ROOT VEGETABLES, FOREIGN PESTS INTRODUCED VIA THE BLOC’S OPEN IMPORT SYSTEM ARE CAUSING DAMAGE WORTH BILLIONS – AND OUTBREAKS ARE ON THE RISE
“The plants slowly choke to death, wither and dry out. They die en masse, leaves dropping and bark turning grey, creating a sea of monochrome. Since scientists first discovered Xylella fastidiosa in 2013 in Puglia, Italy, it has killed a third of the region’s 60 million olive trees – which once produced almost half of Italy’s olive oil – many of which were centuries old. Farms stopped producing, olive mills went bankrupt and tourists avoided the area. With no known cure, the bacterium has already caused damage costing about €1bn.” (2)
The threat of such damage has driven funders and researchers into numerous scientific studies. Some of them took steps forward and recognized the real cause of the problems in many olive groves.
“The greatest part of the territory was completely destroyed,” says Donato Boscia, a plant virologist and head researcher on Xylella at the Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection in Bari.
A decade later, far from nearing resolution, the threat to European plants from Xylella and other diseases is only growing: in February 2024, Puglia scientists found another Xylella subspecies, which had annihilated US vineyards and never previously been detected in Italy. For many farmers, scientists and regulators, the disease is emblematic of a far broader problem: the EU’s difficulty curtailing the introduction of devastating new plant diseases, despite regulatory efforts over the past decade. New data, released to the Guardian, shows that dozens of newly introduced disease outbreaks are detected in the EU every year, even as farmers and scientists struggle to contain previously introduced pathogens. As the climate heats, scientists warn the problem will get worse.” (2)
A COCKTAIL OF REAL CAUSES vs FINDING THE GLOBALISM AS CULPRIT ON DUTY
Plant pests and plant diseases have been surprising more and more often in recent years. Those from other continents appear in the EU and vice versa. And they cause many problems, as the plants are not resistant to non-native pests and non-native diseases.
In recent years, the painful moaning of dying olive trees has also been heard from many olive groves in the EU. It is not about individual olive trees, but about entire olive groves, even hundreds of years old olive trees are dying. The plant disease bacterial blight of olives, caused by the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa, which definitively destroys entire infected plantations, was declared to be the culprit, hence the nickname “black death”.
SEARCHING FOR THE RIGHT CAUSES ALWAYS PAYS OFF. IN THIS CASE ALSO, IT WAS (IT) LIKE THIS.
“XYLELLA MAY NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR OLIVE TREE DEVASTATION IN PUGLIA, STUDY FINDS
The disease is particularly prominent in the southern Italian region of Puglia but has also been detected in Argentina, Brazil, California, Greece and Spain”(1)
“The threat of such damage has driven funders and researchers into numerous scientific studies. Some of them took steps forward and recognized the real cause of the problems in many olive groves.
Xylella fastidiosa may exacerbate the condition of trees affected by Olive Quick Decline Syndrome but is not the direct cause.– Margherita Ciervo, study co-author
The findings could unravel a decade of policy and understanding that Xylella fastidiosa was the leading cause of Olive Quick Decline Syndrome in Puglia.
According to Scortichini and Ciervo, suspending the 50-meter radius eradication rule “could preserve numerous healthy ancient and monumental olive trees and their significant contribution to the landscape.”
New research suggests that Xylella fastidiosa was responsible for just a small percentage of the olive trees destroyed by Olive Quick Decline Syndrome (OQDS) in Puglia.
For more than a decade, the prevailing wisdom had been that the Xylella fastidiosa (Xf) bacterium infected olive trees across the southern Italian region, resulting in the deadly OQDS.
Xylella fastidiosa may exacerbate the condition of trees affected by Olive Quick Decline Syndrome but is not the direct cause.– Margherita Ciervo, study co-author
However, research published in the Journal of Phytopathology found that slightly less than 23 percent of trees killed by OQDS from February 2016 to May 2017 were infected by Xf.
Between May 2021 and February 2022, slightly more than three percent of the OQDS-affected olive trees were found to carry Xylella.
If confirmed – and some scientists are skeptical – the findings imply that the strategies currently employed to contain Xf may not effectively address the spread of OQDS.
OLIVE QUICK DECLINE SYNDROME
Olive Quick Decline Syndrome (OQDS) is a wasting disease of olive trees that causes dieback of the leaves, twigs and branches so that the trees no longer produce olives. It is widely believed that the Xylella fastidiosa bacterium causes the disease. OQDS symptoms include leaf scorch and desiccation of twigs and branches, beginning from the top of the crown and spreading to the rest of the tree. The disease is particularly prominent in the southern Italian region of Puglia but has also been detected in Argentina, Brazil, California, Greece and Spain. Some experts predict it could cost the olive oil sector up to €5.6 billion over the next 50 years.
Researchers said the conclusions are based on data gathered by regional phytosanitary bodies and research institutions from 2013 to 2023.
The data include the areas monitored, the number of trees exhibiting OQDS symptoms, the number of plants examined, the number of trees testing positive for Xylella fastidiosa pauca – a strain of the bacteria that infects olive trees – and the number of plants uprooted within the designated zones in Puglia.
“Everything we wrote comes from reading those numbers,” said Marco Scortichini, lead olive and fruit crop researcher at the Italian Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), who co-authored the study
Current methods for detecting Xylella fastidiosa have advanced, including trained dogs and drones.
“These techniques have simplified the detection of Xylella fastidiosa compared to earlier methods,” Scortichini said. “Significant research investment in recent years has led to the development of effective and highly sensitive tools.”
Local inspectors are responsible for the monitoring tasks, selecting olive trees for sampling by specialized labs to detect Xylella fastidiosa’s presence.
“Expectations might suggest a high prevalence of Xylella fastidiosa in olive trees from infected zones,” Scortichini said. “Yet, we find ourselves at a mere 3.21 percent.”
Since its discovery in Apulian olive trees in 2013, Xylella fastidiosa has been under intense scrutiny by both regional and national authorities.
The bacterium is classified as a List‑A quarantine pathogen, indicating it was previously unidentified in the region and has caused significant damage in other areas, including the Americas.
“Current data validate initial observations, indicating that the syndrome and Xylella fastidiosa overlap only in a minority of instances,” said Margherita Ciervo, a study co-author and researcher at the University of Foggia’s Department of Economy, Management and Territory.
“This also suggests that Xylella fastidiosa is not the primary cause of the trees’ rapid demise,” she added. “Xylella fastidiosa may exacerbate the condition of trees affected by OQDS but is not the direct cause.”
Given these findings, the researchers advocate reassessing the measures implemented to combat Xylella fastidiosa.
The existing European Union plant health law mandates the demarcation of Xylella-infected zones and the enforcement of strict eradication policies, including removing an infected olive tree and all others within a 50-meter radius.
The study’s authors argue that the eradication measures should be reconsidered in light of their findings. “Earlier studies have shown that asymptomatic olive trees barely contribute to the bacterium’s spread,” they wrote.
In a 2020 study cited by the researchers, the asymptomatic stage was found to have low to negligible infectivity. Trees with symptoms were instead found to be able to spread Xf to an average of 19 other trees per annum.
According to Scortichini and Ciervo, suspending the 50-meter radius eradication rule “could preserve numerous healthy ancient and monumental olive trees and their significant contribution to the landscape.”
They argue that further investigation should focus on alternative causes of OQDS. “Besides a few studies on Xylella fastidiosa and other pathogens, OQDS has received little attention,” Scortichini said.
He suggested that exploring OQDS’s development could open new research avenues.
“The past decade has seen a shift from the notion of a single pathogen causing fatal disease in trees to a more complex understanding,” Scortichini said. “We’re gradually recognizing that various microbes, influenced by temperature fluctuations and climatic disruptions, can collectively lead to disease.”
He also highlighted the potential impact of climate change on soil conditions, moisture levels and plants’ resilience to drought and heat waves.
“Climate alterations might activate different pathogens that would otherwise be benign or diminish the plants’ capacity to resist them,” Scortichini concluded.” (1)
“The greatest part of the territory was completely destroyed,” says Donato Boscia, a plant virologist and head researcher on Xylella at the Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection in Bari.
A DECADE LATER, FAR FROM NEARING RESOLUTION, THE THREAT TO EUROPEAN PLANTS FROM XYLELLA DISEASES IS ONLY GROWING
“A decade later, far from nearing resolution, the threat to European plants from Xylella and other diseases is only growing: in February 2024, Puglia scientists found another Xylella subspecies, which had annihilated US vineyards and never previously been detected in Italy. For many farmers, scientists and regulators, the disease is emblematic of a far broader problem: the EU’s difficulty curtailing the introduction of devastating new plant diseases, despite regulatory efforts over the past decade. New data, released to the Guardian, shows that dozens of newly introduced disease outbreaks are detected in the EU every year, even as farmers and scientists struggle to contain previously introduced pathogens. As the climate heats, scientists warn the problem will get worse.
Across the EU, data shows, outbreaks of newly introduced plant disease have continued unabated at an average rate of 70 a year between 2015 and 2020, despite regulations introduced to stop their spread in 2016. While a number of member states have taken steps to prevent and curb the outbreaks, scientists, plant epidemiologists and agronomists say it is still insufficient.
“I can’t understand how, after Xylella, we learned almost nothing,” says Pierfederico La Notte, an Italian plant epidemiologist.
IMPORT SYSTEM – OPEN OR CLOSED?
On a scorching June morning in 2023, Paolo Solmi, a phytosanitary inspector at the port of Ravenna in northern Italy, tells his team to open the first of 28 containers of Egyptian potatoes to check that day. They fill bags with 100 potatoes each before taking them to the labs for EU standardised tests.
“Once these checks have been passed, the goods are free to move within the European Union,” Solmi says.
The EU has an open import system: everything that is not known to be harmful can enter. Some countries, such as New Zealand and Chile, have opted for a closed system: everything is considered guilty until proven innocent.
Evidence shows that the Xylella bacteria came from Latin America and, most likely, got a ride from ornamental coffee plants passing through the Netherlands. About 30 billion rooted and unrooted plants, cuttings, bulbs and tissues came from third countries into Europe between 2005 and 2014, mainly through Dutch ports.
According to Alberto Santini, a forest pathologist at the Italian National Research Council, such an open system has been letting in an alarming number of plant pests and diseases from third countries.
An aerial photograph showing the damage by Xylella fastidiosa in Puglia – the grey trees are all dead. Photograph: Agostino Petroni/The Guardian
The EU introduced new regulations in 2016 to better manage what gets in and how, and to deal with outbreaks quickly. Still, with so many ports of entry, scientists and regulators can’t keep up with the volumes coming in. Trioza erytreae, a sap-sucking pest, has been endangering Portuguese citrus; a bacterium infecting carrots and celery has been raising concerns around the continent; and Hymenoscyphus fraxineus has been killing ash trees in Poland. Many scientists fear the spread will be helped by the climate crisis, which is making Europe a warmer, more hospitable place for foreign plant pests to thrive.
“With the current system in Europe, we continuously introduce new organisms,” La Notte says. “In the context of climate change, it will be more and more difficult to manage them.”
Data provided to the Guardian by Wopke van der Werf and Hongyu Sun, researchers at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands, shows that there were 1,720 recorded outbreaks of alien plant disease between 1975 and 2020 in the EU, with Italy, France and Spain accounting for half of them. 2018 was the worst year, with 115 known cases.
The data is drawn from the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO) database, which records where alien plant diseases – outbreaks caused by alien insects, pathogens and nematodes – are found for the first time or in a new region inside the union. That data is likely an underestimate: EPPO collects new findings by scanning the scientific literature and acquiring official pest reports from its member countries’ national plant protection organisations, so its reports are limited to each country’s responsiveness and interest in investigating an uncommon pest sighting.
A LONG TRADING HISTORY
For some countries, such as the Netherlands, open trade in plants is a core part of their history and economy – and they have been resistant to increased regulation. Christian Linden, the founder and CEO of IBH Export, walks around his 14,000-sq metre storage area in the Aalsmeer Flower Auction house in the Netherlands. He imports cut flowers and pot plants, mostly from Turkey and east Africa, and redistributes them around Europe.
Linden says he doesn’t know much about pathogens or bugs entering through the plant trade, but isn’t concerned because the phytosanitary authorities “are very strict”. He thinks the 2016 plant health regulation created higher protection for the EU, and points out the introduction of plant passports, which did not exist when Xylella arrived in Italy. Today, he adds, if one customer finds a disease or a bug on an imported plant, the whole shipment is tracked down and destroyed.
“When it’s necessary to protect the environment, you have to do it,” he says.
BALANCING COSTS AND BENEFITS
In the port at Ravenna, phytosanitary inspector Solmi recognises the challenge. “Europe was born around the movement of goods, capital and people,” he says. “Our mission is to do our best within the open phytosanitary system because an alternative currently does not exist.”
But while the economic cost of what the EU could lose in terms of trading is substantial, so is the price of the damages caused by alien pests and diseases. How do you put a price on a lost forest of ash trees?
“The main issue on the economics is that data is kind of scarce,” says Françoise Petter, former assistant director at EPPO. The costs and benefits of a closed system have not been calculated, and it is unknown whether losses incurred by a slower trading system would be offset by the preserved value of EU agriculture and biodiversity.
“We’ve never tried to do a full comparison with a closed system,” Petter says. “That’s a little bit depressing, isn’t it?” (2)
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Source:
(1) Xylella May Not Be Responsible for Olive Tree Devastation in Puglia, Study Finds, Article, Published :https://www.oliveoiltimes.com/
(2) Plant apocalypse: how new diseases are destroying EU trees and crops, Article, By Agostino Petroni and Regin Winther Poulsen. Published: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/24/
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