- The European Life Resilience project is already working with 1,050 genotypes of olive varieties to find those that are more resistant to the bacteria
- There is no cure for this pathogen, so efforts are focused on preventing it
Life Resilience, the project co-financed by the Life program of the European Union, whose main objective is the prevention of Xylella fastidiosa in high density farms of both olive and almond trees, has obtained 1,050 new genotypes of olive tree, which are going to be evaluated by the University of Córdoba.
Teresa Carrillo, Life Resilience project director,answered some questions about the project at the Galpagro stand at Expoliva and stressed that «Xylella fastidiosa is a very aggressive disease that once it has been implanted in a farm is difficult to eradicate, for the moment there is no cure. That is the reason that projects like this one propose sustainable practices that guide farmers on how to manage the farm in an appropriate way. »
In this research phase, special emphasis has been placed on obtaining genotypes resistant to the disease by crossing resistant varieties with good characteristics and developing a model of good practices on farms. Two years of crosses between resistant mothers have been carried out, such as the varieties ‘Leccino’ and ‘Fs-17’ and parents who provide good agronomic characteristics to the new varieties. The first year of crosses was in 2017 and around 500 plants have been obtained (500 genotypes) and in 2018 the second round of crosses has been made, of which 550 genotypes have been obtained.
The first phase of genotypes was planted on the El Valenciano farm in December 2018 and those from the second year crosses will be planted in summer or fall of this year. During the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 the agronomic characteristics will be evaluated and those that stand out above the control varieties (‘Arbequina’, ‘Arbosana’ and ‘Picual’) will be selected, propagated and their resistance to Xylella fastidiosa will be evaluated.
The resistance to the disease in the selected genotypes will be evaluated in two ways. The first will be a plantation in Lecce (Southern Italy) in a field naturally infested and devastated by bacteria. The second way of evaluation will be to send the different selections to a biosecurity laboratory to evaluate the resistance through inoculations.
Life Resilience also seeks to develop a model of sustainable practices that can reduce the carbon footprint and water footprint without compromising the health of the plant, as well as an efficient and sustainable use of all the resources used.
In the first phase of the project, the initial state of the farms has been evaluated in terms of the presence of the insect vector, health of the plant or soil types, among others, which has allowed to carry out a first experimental design with different management strategies .
On the one hand, different deficit irrigation strategies have been applied, biostimulants and biofertilizers have been used to improve soil health and induce resilience in plants and, on the other hand, different plant coverings with different plant species have been tested together with hedges and boundaries to control the insect vector.
The Life Resilience group will continue working to limit the propagation capacity of this pathogen that can cause serious damage to crops and cause millions of dollars in oil producing countries.