The advance of the insect threatens the harvest in the region, already quite diminished by the frosts of last winter
Up to 50% of the Altiplano almond harvest will suffer from the ‘tiger plague’, an old acquaintance of farmers that this campaign has come with unusual force. Specifically, some 30,000 hectares will be affected in the Altiplano area, according to the general director of Agriculture, Food Industry and Cooperatives, Remedios García.
Pedro García, president of Coag Jumilla, regrets that «with two consecutive campaigns of this magnitude the almond tree is destroyed. The frosts took away 70% of the harvest in some areas, and now this bug can kill another 30% or 40%. It is still early to calculate losses, but we estimate that, at most, between 10% and 20% of production will be saved.
CAMPAIGN WITHOUT BENEFITS
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30-50%
of the almond tree harvest in the Altiplano will be attacked by this bug. -
10-20%
of the production can be saved, according to the forecast of the farmers.
Intense attacks by this insect can cause defoliation, weaken the tree and affect production. The voracity of this campaign could be a consequence of global warming, given that high temperatures and drought are two factors that aggravate the plague. “At the beginning of May it began to make an appearance, when it used to appear on the almond during harvest, at the end of July and beginning of August. In those crops where it rained at the end of June, when we were going through the second phase of the plague, it stopped. In the vast majority, on the contrary, it continued and with more force until a sixth phase of the plague, which is where we are now. Farmers are fighting against the almond tree bug to save the production and the trees, but it is proving impossible because this louse flies at great speed, always looking for the sap of the young leaves,” explains Pedro García.
The Murcian Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Research and Development (Imida) will study the feasibility of almond production with the current climate trend, with few frosts in winter and rains in summer, in addition to high temperatures that are increasingly earlier in the calendar. This research will be part of a shock plan with which the Ministry of Agriculture intends to ensure that this situation does not happen again, and which includes raising awareness among farmers to work in a coordinated manner and develop treatments and actions according to the recommendations of the health service. Plant Health. “We will carry out support and training sessions to establish a roadmap that allows all farmers to work equally, in conventional and organic crops, in order to deal effectively with the plague,” said the Director General of Agriculture.
summer enemy
The almond tree bug spends the winter as an adult under the bark of trees, but in spring it regains its activity and appears on the leaves. Coinciding with the third generation of the pest, this bug also affects the development and maturation of fruits and causes other insect pests. As if that were not enough, there is a spider threat, although Pedro García believes that they will be spared because “the remaining trees will have little sap, they have remained in the winter phase.”
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