PESTOLIVE: a mediterranean research project for understanding and managing soil-borne parasites on olive using historical and ecological approaches

Abstract

UMR AGAP - équipe AFEF - Architecture et fonctionnement des espèces fruitièresPESTOLIVE (Contribution of olive history for the management of soil-borne parasites inthe Mediterranean Basin) is a project funded by ARIMNet, an ERANET action supported bythe 7th European Framework Programme and by non-European Mediterranean countries.PESTOLIVE aims at producing knowledge and tools for a new and efficient management ofplant-parasitic nematodes (PPN) and plant-pathogenic fungi (PPF) in olive (Olea europaea L.)cropping systems and nurseries, while reducing the use of pesticides. Because of the anthropiccontinuum from Olea post-glacial refuges to Oleasters (domestication) and then to olive-trees(breeding and cropping), the fragmentation of the PPN and PPF communities and of theirnatural enemies could explain the scattered diversity of the control techniques (especiallyresistance rootstocks, biocontrol, cropping strategies) developed and applied all around theMediterranean Basin. The novelty of PESTOLIVE is based on: i) the analysis and themanagement of the parasite diversity (ecology of communities) instead of controllingemblematic species (population approach), and ii) the involvement of knowledge about thehistorical co-adaptation of soil-borne parasite and natural enemies communities to olive-treedomestication (origins and past assemblages) and breeding that follows the history of O.europaea around the Mediterranean Basin