Where the Olive Trees Are Dying: A Front-Line Report on Xylella

CASALINI, Puglia – Deep in Puglia’s hills green with olive groves there’s no sign of trou­ble. The trees look healthy and are hung with strands of olives – green and black pearls.

This is the Valle d’Itria, a rus­tic place of dirt roads, mean­der­ing stone walls, and cone-shaped struc­tures called trulli.

But not all is right. Scientists recently announced the dis­cov­ery of the Xylella fas­tidiosa dis­ease here – the same deadly plant pathogen stran­gling thou­sands of olive trees far­ther to the south in the flat­ter low­lands of Salento where olive groves range as far as the eye can see.

This quiet cor­ner of Puglia is now the north­ern tip of the deadly march of Xylella fas­tidiosa, a dis­ease threat­en­ing not only this olive-rich land but the entire Mediterranean region and the rest of Europe. the European Food Safety Authority reports Xylella has been found in Corsica, the Balearic Islands and south­ern France.
See Also:World Map of Xylella Fastidiosa Host Plants
Puglia, though, is ground zero.

And the next stop of this deadly march could very well be the Piana degli Ulivi Millenari a few kilo­me­ters from Casalini. If so, the dis­ease would threaten a coastal plain north of Ostuni filled with mag­nif­i­cent ancient olive trees.

Many olive grow­ers inter­viewed by Olive Oil Times did not believe the sci­en­tists and gov­ern­ment agen­cies warn­ing that the dis­ease must be stopped – let alone with dras­tic mea­sures includ­ing dig­ging up and destroy­ing infected trees and those close by.

One of those grow­ers is Cosimo Epifani.

On a recent October morn­ing, the 38-year-old was gath­er­ing olives with his fam­ily. His father was on his knees pick­ing up fallen olives.

Somewhere in the nearby groves, sci­en­tists had iden­ti­fied seven trees infected with Xylella, accord­ing to a regional Web site that tracks the infec­tions.

Epifani shook his head. He did­n’t buy it: For him, the Xylella cri­sis is a fab­ri­ca­tion to enrich sci­en­tists and oth­ers and an out­growth of poor man­age­ment of olive orchards in Salento, where trees with dead leaves – leaf scorch­ing – were first noticed in 2010. The dis­ease has invaded 23,000 hectares in Puglia, accord­ing to a recent study.

“I don’t think it’s going to hap­pen here,” Epifani said. ​“It’s just a money-mak­ing scheme.”
See Also:Complete Coverage of the Xylella Outbreak
Sitting in a car, his mother, Maria Solfatto, agreed. She down­played the sever­ity of the dis­ease and believes Xylella has been in Puglia for a long time – at least since the 1950s when the region saw record snow­fall.

They alleged grow­ers in Salento – where groves are large com­mer­cial oper­a­tions – were at fault.

“It’s because they haven’t taken care of their trees,” Epifani said as he packed up his olive pick­ing equip­ment and put crates brim­ming with olives into a trailer. It was time for pranzo, lunch.

“They’ve found it (Xylella) because they went look­ing for it,” Epifani said. ​“That’s what hap­pened – that’s it right there.”

Despite the pleas of news­pa­pers, sci­en­tists and gov­ern­ment offi­cials, it’s com­mon to hear sim­i­lar argu­ments – and even more nefar­i­ous the­o­ries – issued from farm­ers and envi­ron­men­tal activists.

There are those who allege the dis­ease was intro­duced by multi­na­tional agri­cul­tural cor­po­ra­tions in a plot to force grow­ers to buy pes­ti­cides and her­bi­cides as well as dis­ease-resis­tant olive vari­etals. There are those who allege devel­op­ers were behind the spread of Xylella in a plot to trans­form parts of Puglia into golf courses and tourist resorts. There are those who say Xylella has always existed here.

Scientists say Xylella arrived in Puglia with the impor­ta­tion of plants from Costa Rica, where the dis­ease is endemic.

This skep­ti­cism and denial are con­tribut­ing to the dis­ease’s spread, sci­en­tists warn. The European Commission has urged Italy to do more to stop the dis­ease, which researchers say is car­ried by spit­tle­bugs. There is no known cure.

“Those who doubt that Xylella causes the olive dis­ease are in denial,” said Alexander H. Purcell III, a Xylella expert at the University of California at Berkeley. ​“Doing noth­ing allows the bac­terium and the dis­ease it causes to spread quickly. This accel­er­ates the spread of the dis­ease to their neigh­bors and the envi­ron­ment.”

The mis­giv­ings of olive grow­ers, though, aren’t just unfounded fan­tasies. In a strange twist, they echo alle­ga­tions made by Italian author­i­ties.

In 2015, mag­is­trates in Lecce announced a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into whether Xylella was intro­duced on pur­pose. The mag­is­trates have said till­ing, prun­ing and other mea­sures have proven effec­tive. They also have argued that the heavy use of her­bi­cides weak­ened the trees. Their inves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues.

On the edge of Salento, the tragedy of the Xylella out­break comes into focus.

Only 20 kilo­me­ters south from the green hills of the Valle d’Itria, groves near the town of Oria are under attack. In the space of two years, groves here have become a kind of war zone – a scene out of a pic­ture book on plagues. It’s no won­der why some call Xylella the Ebola of the olive tree.

Along the high­way, tow­er­ing olive trees are cov­ered in brown brit­tle leaves. Further afield, even more groves show the tell-tale signs: dying leaves and branches.

“We’re all in trou­ble here,” said Giuseppe Cineare, a 55-year-old grower who was col­lect­ing olives with an auto­matic clap­per. He said the dis­ease had­n’t been found in his grove, but that it had been in nearby orchards. ​“If it con­tin­ues we’re all destroyed here in agri­cul­ture.”

He shook his head and lamented there was no clear plan.

“There are those who are treat­ing, there are those who don’t, there are those who are doing bio­log­i­cal treat­ment and that does­n’t work,” he said.

For his part, he reck­oned his trees had­n’t been infected because he uses chem­i­cals to kill the bugs. ​“I treat the trees,” he said.

Not far away trees had been cut down to stumps and com­pletely dug up.

In one grove a farmer appeared to be attempt­ing to save trees by cut­ting them back dras­ti­cally to the trunk and graft­ing on new stock, pre­sum­ably to make the trees resis­tant to the bac­te­ria. Some vari­etals are believed to be immune.

At one grove full of old gnarly trees, an elderly farmer com­plained that author­i­ties had deemed a few of his trees to be infected.

“Look at them, they are healthy,” he said, point­ing to the trees with prun­ing clip­pers in hand. ​“They want us to cut them down,” he said. ​“What are we to do? What hap­pens if we don’t cut them down? They say we will be fined. We can’t afford fines.”

He chose not to give his name because he was involved in a legal fight to save his trees from being cut down. Instead of cut­ting down trees, he said they needed to be pruned heav­ily and looked after.

His farm – fenced and kept neatly trimmed and plowed – was sand­wiched between groves where infected trees had been dug up. One of those trees was ancient, the farmer said. His wife showed up and spoke bit­terly about gov­ern­ment man­dates to extir­pate trees. She also chose not to give her name.

“Italy will become a desert if they do what they want us to do,” she said.

Further along the dirt road the tragedy con­tin­ued. More stumps, more empty groves, more brown­ing trees.

What is the solu­tion? Will Puglia erad­i­cate all its infected trees and raze oth­ers to stop the spread? Will the use of her­bi­cides and pes­ti­cides be the solu­tion? Will heavy prun­ing and till­ing staunch its spread? Will the intro­duc­tion of preda­tor bugs prove effec­tive?

At the end of another dirt road and in the midst of a grove of beau­ti­fully twisted olives, Cosimo Albertini, an olive tree pruner and grower, came out of his farm­house to talk. He too blamed dark forces.

“They poured it on us – the multi­na­tion­als,” he said. ​“There is a lot of inter­est among multi­na­tion­als in Puglia.”

Asked to clar­ify, he stated with­out hes­i­ta­tion that he believed the dis­ease was sprayed on Puglia.

He grew ani­mated. ​“We’re destroy­ing our pat­ri­mony,” he said about man­dates to dig up infected trees and oth­ers to cre­ate buffer zones. ​“This is a his­toric refuge that they are mak­ing us destroy.”

He added: ​“They want us to extir­pate the trees, just like they did in England with mad cow (dis­ease). They were com­pen­sated but they aren’t com­pen­sat­ing us.”