Project funded by ASI - Italian Space Agency
Call Downstream and Application Services I4DP Market
FIXYLL
FIght XYLeLla fastidiosa
For more than 10 years, Apulia’s production activities that gravitate around the cultivation of olive trees, on which a large part of the regional economy depends, have suffered a setback caused by Xylella fastidiosa, a phytopathogenic bacterium that affects olive trees from within, causing them to dry up until death. At present, the only way to get rid of the bacterium is to eradicate the infected plants.
There is in fact no scientifically proven method for treating plants affected by Xylella fastidiosa to date. In order to control vectors, and in particular the main vector Philaenus spumarius L. (Hemiptera, Aphrophoridae), it is of fundamental importance to implement the requirements of national and EU regulations in good time to limit the spread of the bacterium.
The aim of the FIXYLL – FIght XYLeLla fastidiosa project is to provide support in the fight against the spread of olive trees diseased by Xylella fastidiosa through remote sensing techniques primarily by satellite and, if a high spatial resolution is needed, by drones. This, in order to make the activities related to the checks required by European and national regulations faster, more reliable and exhaustive.
Although the proposed services are primarily addressed to the Apulia Region use case, FIXYLL will allow the development of a series of tools that can also be partially or fully reused in other situations of phytosanitary emergencies, besides Xylella.
The four services to be developed by the project are:
- Identification of vigorous olive trees, in contexts strongly affected by the infection, in order to identify wild plants that might have a high degree of tolerance.
- Development of a system for the graphic visualisation of the dynamics of the spread of the infection in the Salento area based on the analysis of the vegetative vigour of the plants extracted from satellite data, also using hyperspectral images from the Italian satellite Prisma.
- Verification of soil tillage in areas where the regional prescription is in force through the combined use of optical and radar tele-detected satellite images.
- Monitoring and validation of explanted plants for the second level validation of explants. This is to verify that the explantation has been carried out on infected plants.
FiXyll enables, in the light of the reference context, the motivations of the proposers and the scenarios in which they operate, the pooling of the various competences possessed, which are synergic with respect to the objective to be achieved, and will lead not only to the definition of agreements for the commercialisation of the solutions and services developed, but will also determine opportunities for the development of further services and application solutions in the precision agriculture sector.
The beneficiaries of the services introduced by the project are:
- Farms on whose land healthy plants are identified.
- Bodies and Research Institutes involved and/or interested in the dynamics of the spread of Xylella fastidiosa and, in parallel, in the identification of germplasm tolerant or resistant to the bacterium or, in any case, in the specific characteristics of non-infected plants.
- Local Public Bodies. The results of this service may be of support to Local Public Authorities in analysing the effectiveness of the prevention and counteraction actions adopted in past years and in defining counteraction and monitoring measures that can be modulated according to the risk level of the different areas.
- Agricultural entrepreneurs and their associative organisations. From the historical analysis of the ‘trajectories’ of the epidemic’s development in past years, it will be possible both on the basis of predictive scenarios, to hypothesise the areas at greatest risk and on the basis of historical results, to identify good agricultural practices that can have a positive impact.
Project manager: Manuela Matarrese, manuela.matarrese@dtascarl.it
Technical manager: Vincenzo Barbieri, barbieri@planetek.it
Project budget: 0,400 M€
Partner: DTA scarl (lead partner), PLANETEK Italia srl, UNAPROL S.C.P.A.
