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September 2026

Growing avocado in Greece: cultivars, soil, climate, diseases and pests

Growing avocado in Greece: cultivars, soil, climate, diseases and pests

Three botanical races, and the Mexican one supplies frost tolerance while the West Indian one supplies tolerance of lime and salt: Greece asks for both at once. With Greek data from ELGO Chania: across ten orchards over six years Fuerte met the dry matter threshold in only two seasons and Zutano in none. In detail: synchronous dichogamy and the cultivars one by one, the temperature limits, soils at pH up to 8.3 and calcium carbonate up to 20.7 per cent, eleven rootstocks, planting distances and training.

Avocado Cultivars Soil Climate Diseases Pests Rootstocks
Attapulgite: what it actually does to soil, at what rate, and what its use costs

Attapulgite: what it actually does to soil, at what rate, and what its use costs

A Greek mineral with a specific surface area of 220 m2/g and an exchange capacity of 57 meq/100 g. What the field trials on sandy soils showed, why the rate threshold is 6,000 kg per hectare, what the IARC fibre classification means, which particle grade for which use, and why the rise in pH is the main argument against it on Mediterranean calcareous soils.

Soil improvers Soil Attapulgite Nutrition
Pests and diseases of walnut: identification from the symptoms, with a diagnostic tool

Pests and diseases of walnut: identification from the symptoms, with a diagnostic tool

Twenty causes, each with the one feature that separates it in the field: anthracnose and blight that produce the same lesion, brown apical necrosis, the pests of the nut, mites and aphids, the branch dieback complex, the cankers of the trunk, blackline at the graft union and the quarantine risk. With a tool that compares the symptoms against the profile of every cause, and two foreign recommendations that are illegal in the European Union today.

Walnut
Pests and diseases of brassica vegetables: cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts

Pests and diseases of brassica vegetables: cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts

Downy mildew, Alternaria, Sclerotinia, phoma stem canker, Fusarium yellows, clubroot, black rot and viruses. Diamondback moth, cabbage whites, cabbage moth, aphids, cabbage whitefly, cabbage root fly, flea beetles, thrips. Plus the three non-parasitic disorders mistaken for diseases. With the current pathogen names, the measured thresholds, a look-alike table and the active substances approved in Greece.

Brassicas Cabbage Cauliflower Broccoli
Beneficial insects, predatory mites and entomopathogenic nematodes: 37 species with their biology and release rates

Beneficial insects, predatory mites and entomopathogenic nematodes: 37 species with their biology and release rates

Thirty-seven beneficial organisms available on the Greek market, with their life cycle, published temperature thresholds, humidity limits and release rates. Why they hold no authorisation number and what they hold instead: the Greek national catalogue of preparations containing macro-organisms and Ministerial Decision 10522/117908. An interactive selection tool by crop and pest, a full searchable table, release rates from peer-reviewed work, IOBC compatibility with plant protection products, and eight documented ways a release fails. Photoperiod, Greek summer temperature and humidity as the real limiting factors.

Biological control Beneficials Integrated pest management
Training kiwifruit: T-bar and pergola

Training kiwifruit: T-bar and pergola

The architecture of the kiwifruit vine and why both training systems follow from it. T-bar and pergola with their dimensions, advantages, costs and a comparison in numbers. Training from the day of planting: planting high, a first season for the root with tipping at one metre, cutting back low the following spring and taking the trunk up in the second season, leaders, winter and summer pruning, males and the support structure. Three diagrams, a table of mistakes, and the gaps that remain for Greece. A field observation from Giannitsa on planting distances.

Kiwifruit Pruning
Almond pests and diseases: identification from symptoms, with a diagnostic tool

Almond pests and diseases: identification from symptoms, with a diagnostic tool

The almond seed wasp with the phenology of emergence and a 2026 field record from Pella, red leaf blotch as a monocyclic disease with its single spray window, spider mite with the sampling thresholds and abamectin resistance, blossom blight, anthracnose, shot hole, Phytophthora, root rots, bacterial diseases and viruses, and the storage moths with the link between insect damage and aflatoxin. A tool that compares field symptoms against the profiles of 25 causes.

Almond
The dry shoot disease of peach

The dry shoot disease of peach

Dead annual shoots with the leaves still attached, buds that fail to break, and since 2021 an epidemic on the plain of Giannitsa. The cause is the fungus Diaporthe amygdali. In detail: the distinction from the blind shoot, the fusicoccin that kills the shoot, the entry points at leaf fall, the susceptibility of ten clingstone cultivars and the year’s programme.

Peach
Peach diseases and pests: identification from symptoms, with a diagnostic tool

Peach diseases and pests: identification from symptoms, with a diagnostic tool

Brown rot, leaf curl, shot hole, scab, rust, bacterial spot and canker, Armillaria, Phytophthora, Diaporthe amygdali, plum pox, and the pests: peach twig borer, oriental fruit moth and summer fruit tortrix with degree-days from orchards in Pella, spider mites, Comstock mealybug, flat-headed root borer, goat moth. A tool that compares field symptoms against the profiles of 33 causes, with photographs and the one feature that separates them.

Peach
Tomato diseases: diagnosis, causes and control

Tomato diseases: diagnosis, causes and control

Fungi, oomycetes, bacteria, phytoplasmas, viruses and viroids, organised the way they are diagnosed. Where the symptom starts, how it spreads, and what the stem cut shows - with an explicit field and greenhouse distinction.

Tomato

Authorisation expiry dates for plant protection products: what they mean and what to check before spraying

Hundreds of products appear with a past approval date and no withdrawal recorded. The European regulation expressly provides for the authorisation to be extended while renewal is pending. When expiry is an administrative milestone and when it is a real end, what the grace period limits are, why emergency authorisations are a different matter, and the practical checklist before every application.

Legislation Crop protection
Olive nutrition: what actually leaves the grove

Olive nutrition: what actually leaves the grove

The real annual nutrient removals in kg per hectare from long-term Spanish trials, the limits of leaf analysis, why nitrogen is usually a problem of excess, and what actually drives alternate bearing.

Olive