Phytosanitary defense in olive growing faces multiple challenges today in Italy. The first and most difficult has been since 2013, the one relating to Xylella
annoying. Others concern classic cryptogamic problems such as diseases due to olive mange, peacock's eye and vercosporiosis or olive leaf spot. Still others can be distinguished among those caused by insects that have always been considered "key phytophagous" (such as carpophagi olive fly and moth) and those caused both by indigenous species, which have significantly increased recently in terms of harmfulness and economic importance (such as cecidomia and green moth), and from polyphagous and highly invasive exotic species (such as asian bug).
Common management difficulties, due to various olive phytosanitary problems, are dependent: come on climate changes ongoing (with the intensification of phenomena and space-time meteoric variability); from the territorial co-presence of semi-abandoned olive groves and Newly developed arboretums with high cultivation intensity (by plant density and mechanization); last but not least, from contraction of the agricultural pharmacopoeia following the evolution of community phytosanitary legislation (increasingly stringent to protect human health and the environment).
However, this complex of challenges has long been faced with confidence, leveraging three primary cornerstones, valid for every type of olive growing: 1) guaranteeing sufficient biodiversity and internal resilience of the olive grove; 2) favor i biological phytosanitary defense systems, microbiological and biotechnological; 3) apply these classic concepts of “Integrated Pest Management” (IPM) in a dynamic territorial logic of “Area-Wide Pest Management” (AWPM).
All this will be discussed at the conference organized by the Georgofili Academy and the National College of Agricultural Experts scheduled for next year. September 18th, starting at 15.00 pm, in the headquarters of the Academy of Florence. Among the speakers Donato Boscia, Stefania Tegli, Angelo Canale, Bruno Bagnoli, Eric Conti, Riggero Petacchi, Alice Caselli, Osea Putignano. Participation, yes in person and online, can only take place by completing, by 14.00 pm on Friday 15 September 2023, the form available on georgofili.it or downloadable directly here.
