The INTERFRUTA project is financed by the
European Commission Interreg III-B Programme and was developed for the islands of
“Madeira”, “Tenerife” and “Terceira”, for the improvement of fruit and vineyard
production in these three Atlantic regions. The project goal is a better knowledge of the
phytossanitary problems that affect apples, bananas, chestnut and vineyards, applying
methods that will contribute to solutions based on the survey of key pests, diseases and
beneficial organisms. In the three fruit crops and vineyards analyzed, the methodology
used was mainly direct observation of predefined parts of each plant (such as leaves and
flowers) on which pests might be expected to occur. The key pest C. capitata was
monitored as adults using sexual lures in a net of traps around the island of “Terceira”
up to 200 meters altitude. The beneficial insect survey was conducted using the beating
technique. For diseases, a direct sampling was carried out by the observation of 10 %
of the plants in each orchard or vineyard plot looking for visible symptoms. In apples
and vineyards, flowers and branches were collected and tested for microorganisms using
serologic and molecular techniques (Elisa and PCR). In banana plantations, the most
damaging pests were banana weevil, thrips and a fungi complex that causes symptoms
similar to Fusarium wilt. In chestnut, the pest that causes the most severe damage,
affecting around 40 % of the nuts produced, is the Chestnut tortrix, but there were some
difficulties in identifying which of the three known species was present in the Azores
islands. In vineyards, diseases that are most frequent and important include grapevine
downy mildew, powdery mildew and Botrytis. Invertebrate pests included grape
leafhoppers, thrips and eriophyid mites. The European vine moth was also surveyed but
none were found and is still not present. In apple orchards the most important problems
were thrips, mites, oriental fruit moth and codling moth. Anarsia lineatella Zeller, the
peach twig borer, was not detected and new Eriophyid species have been recorded for
the first time in the Azores as a result of the surveys. With the information collected it
was possible to create a phytossanitary diagnostic database for the Macaronesian islands
(PROFITOMAC) on the project internet pages (www.interfruta.uac.pt), to help users to
identify problems that affect the studied cultures
