Olive Production Threatened by a Resurgent Pest (Costa, 1857) (Thysanoptera: Phlaeothripidae) in Southern Italy.

This study investigated a resurgence of Costa (Thysanoptera: Phlaeothripidae), an insect pest of olive crops, in a focal Southern Italian olive-producing area (Calabria Region). The young and adult olive thrips feed on the leaves and fruits of wild and cultivated olive trees, producing distortions, necrosis, and premature dropping of fruit. In our study, organic and integrated olive groves were compared for two years in order to establish the relationship between leaf and fruit damage among olive groves managed under different phytosanitary conditions.

Evaluation of water relation parameters in vitis rootstocks with different drought tolerance and their effects on growth of a grafted cultivar.

Knowledge of root hydraulic resistance will allow us to better understand water relations arising in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. These are the basis for better control of plant behaviour in the current environmental context that is more and more affected by global warming and problems related to increased drought frequency and duration. The objectives of this study were to determine how the growth of a cultivar changes in response to the drought tolerance of the rootstock used in Vitis grown in a semi-arid area and how the root hydraulic resistivity and root hydraulic conductivity change with increased transpiration when adopting a rootstock with a different drought tolerance.