A plant disease called Xylella fastidiosa, which originated in South America, is leaping across the European continent. It has now reached Italy, the Balearic Islands, Germany and France. As well as crops, it threatens many forest trees, including oak, elm, ash, cherry, sycamore and plane.
Urban trees seem to be especially susceptible, perhaps because of the stresses they suffer: in American cities, some streets have had to be clear-felled. There is no known cure.
Cultivated trees have less natural resistance, being heavily treated with insecticide sprays and anti fungus and virus chemicals.
Xylella has ripped through olive groves in Italy and vineyards and fruit farms in the Americas.
Philaenus spumarius, the froghopper, is a common vector
The disease has been called olive quick decline syndrome (OQDS; in Italian: complesso del disseccamento rapido dell’olivo).[11][13] The disease causes withering and desiccation of terminal shoots, distributed randomly at first but which then expands to the rest of the canopy.[13]
This results in the collapse and death of the trees.[13] In the affected groves, all of the plants show symptoms.[13] By the beginning of 2015 it had infected up to a million trees in the southern region of Apulia.[14] Continue reading “Deadly Tree disease spreads to Spain.. sweeping Europe”
The Free 