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Get used to it, this will become much more common with climate change. Insect and diseases infestation and ecosystem collapse will be a weekly thing before you know it.
Get used to it, this will become much more common with climate change. Insect and diseases infestation and ecosystem collapse will be a weekly thing before you know it.
I'm not sure climate change bears more blame than agricultural systems that incentivize monocultures fragile in the face of external stresses. Climate change is only one such stress. Crop diseases are as old as agriculture. And really, agricultural collapse is quite separate from ecosystem collapse; agriculture is many ways defined by the intentional absence of ecosystem.
"Symptoms of X. fastidiosa diseases worsen during hot, dry periods in the summer: lack of water and maximum demand from a full canopy of leaves combined with symptoms due to disease stress infected plants to a breaking point. Cold winters can limit the spread of the disease;[8] as occurs in California, but not in regions with milder winters such as Brazil." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylella_fastidiosa#Environment)
It sounds like this could definitely be related to climate change. I'm sure monoculture agriculture doesn't help, but (based on quick searching) olive trees don't fruit in a commercially viable way until they are 7+ years old and don't reach peak yield until they are 70 years old.
If it was purely a monoculture issue, I'd question why it didn't happen sooner given the lead time necessary to increase production.
Get used to it, this will become much more common with climate change. Insect and diseases infestation and ecosystem collapse will be a weekly thing before you know it.
I think it has much more to do with monocropping than with climate change. There are lots of other examples with different crops long before the effects of climate change were noticeable.
This same bacteria causes Pierce's disease in Vitis vinifera, the common grape (from Eurasia). Whereas North American Vitis species are resistant to Xf.
There's a lot of research going into solving Pierce's disease here in the US from breading programs to bacteriophages. The later may end up helping solve the same problem in Olives.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure climate change bears more blame than agricultural systems that incentivize monocultures fragile in the face of external stresses. Climate change is only one such stress. Crop diseases are as old as agriculture. And really, agricultural collapse is quite separate from ecosystem collapse; agriculture is many ways defined by the intentional absence of ecosystem.
Just going by the wikipedia entry for X. fastidiosa, but "Symptoms of X. fastidiosa diseases worsen during hot, dry periods in the summer: lack of water and maximum demand from a full canopy of leaves combined with symptoms due to disease stress infected plants to a breaking point. Cold winters can limit the spread of the disease;[8] as occurs in California, but not in regions with milder winters such as Brazil." ( h…
We can play the “climate change causes everything bad” game for pretty much anything, but we’d be intellectually dishonest if we denied that climate change could actually have benefits.
Get used to it, this will become much more common with climate change. Insect and diseases infestation and ecosystem collapse will be a weekly thing before you know it.
What does this have to do with climate change?
Maximally efficient is minimally robust.
This is so obviously false. Counterexample: Robusta Coffee.
Real long-term robustness in nature comes from genetic diversity, which ensures future pathogens with a particular affinity will not be able to thrive through entire countries/continents.
I don't wish this disease on the countries exposed to it, but I do hope we can negotiate better prices for our olive oil and related products selling into Europe and the world.
We're also (at least in principle, but there are holes) builders of strong biosecurity boundaries. I'd hope we can avoid this disease for a while until mitigation is worked out. We didn't escape the banana diseases. That was bad :-(
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is so obviously false. Counterexample: Robusta Coffee.
Why do you say it is obvious? Monocultures were selected at a specific point in time for their properties, which may include robustness, but it doesn't change the fact that they are basically giant colonies of clones. Real long-term robustness in nature comes from genetic diversity, which ensures future pathogens with a particular affinity will not be able to thrive through entire countries/continents.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you say it is obvious? Monocultures were selected at a specific point in time for their properties, which may include robustness, but it doesn't change the fact that they are basically giant colonies of clones. Real long-term robustness in nature comes from genetic diversity, which ensures future pathogens with a particular affinity will not be able to thrive through entire countries/continents.
That also applies to people right?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure climate change bears more blame than agricultural systems that incentivize monocultures fragile in the face of external stresses. Climate change is only one such stress. Crop diseases are as old as agriculture. And really, agricultural collapse is quite separate from ecosystem collapse; agriculture is many ways defined by the intentional absence of ecosystem.
Just going by the wikipedia entry for X. fastidiosa, but "Symptoms of X. fastidiosa diseases worsen during hot, dry periods in the summer: lack of water and maximum demand from a full canopy of leaves combined with symptoms due to disease stress infected plants to a breaking point. Cold winters can limit the spread of the disease;[8] as occurs in California, but not in regions with milder winters such as Brazil." ( h…
Crops undergo massive failures relatively frequently. Bananas are headed towards their second extinction this half-century. As stresses perhaps become more acute due to a rapidly changing climate and environment, this lack of resliliency may prove quite harmful, more so than the damage that can be reliably attributed to any individual stressor.