Xylella razes 12.000 hectares of almond trees in Baleares.

The mass death of almond trees in Mallorca and Menorca brings to light the possibility that the Xylella take years in the Balearic Islands.

The alarm by the appearance of Xylella fastidiosa in Baleares jumped few weeks ago, but the reality is that this pest could have been present on the islands for several years without being detected.

In fact, farmers fear the plague of Xylella detected in Mallorca is behind the death of 12.000 hectares of almond trees on the island. Half of the samples taken by the Environment in these trees have tested positive for the bacteria and this species have become the main focus of the plague.

The concern is that this result comes after a decade in which producers have seen almond crops were lost at a rate of 1.000 hectares per year and in which the only response given by the Government was that the cause was a fungus with no cure.

The almond trees have been, for now, the main victim of Xylella fastidiosa and the overlap between the symptoms of the bacteria and the trees lost in the last ten years, lights now all alarms as recorded by Alexander Cortès in diariodemallorca.es.

Farmers have already expressed their suspicions before the Govern bring to light detecting Xylella in 37 almond trees. In the information events directed to the sector in which the Ministry of Vincente Vidal denied the existence of new cases of this bacteria, the relationship of this new pest with the loss of thousands of hectares of almond trees in recent years was an issue raised by producers.

Not yet know the impact of Xylella in the almond, the main indication for suspected was the overlap between the symptoms of this bacteria and presented by thousands of these dead trees.

As it has been reporting Environment, the first symptom of Xylella is the yellowing of the leaves of the trees affected because of the dryness caused by the clogging of vessels drivers.

Exactly the same symptom has been detected in recent years in thousands of almond as a preliminary step to complete drying and subsequent death, and it is linked to the presence of so-called fusicoccum or fong of the whip.

In fact, according to technical, in most samples almond trees have a common denominator: bacteria besides, this fungus also have the.