The most serious disease of the crop worldwide, and it cannot be cured. Pruning cuts stay susceptible for at least 64 days, not a few. Summer leaf spots predict winter cankers. And all 22 strains tested from Pella in northern Greece proved resistant to copper.
Symptomatic plants in 96% of Italian orchards, and no correlation with soil or grower practice. Prevention at the pruning cut is the only tool there is.
The vine stops lifting water while the soil is wet. Root density, a 2% intercellular space and the five-hour oxygen rule explain why kiwifruit is the extreme case.
Phytophthora, or crown rot, is a serious problem for agriculture worldwide, because beyond the crop it destroys the planting itself, which in tree fruit takes years to build again.
Copper resistance documented in all 22 canker strains from Pella, a vine decline caused by Phytopythium on waterlogged soil rather than Phytophthora, botrytis decided at flowering five months before it shows, and stink bug damage visible only when the fruit is cut. With a field differential-diagnosis table and a monitoring calendar.
Which species actually matter, how to tell nematode damage from vine decline, and why soil temperature decides whether the nematicide works, with the Greek register and 31 sources.
The larva eats the inside of the trunk for two or three years, and the tree fades with stunting, chlorosis and small leaves, the same picture as Phytophthora, Armillaria or a nutrient deficiency. Identification of adult, larva and egg, the multi-year cycle, why it returns to the same trees, the distinction from the leopard moth, and what pheromone traps are actually good for.
Two overlapping generations a year, 538 degree-days from egg to adult, and a chemical toolbox that keeps shrinking. Greek monitoring data from Imathia and Pieria, the native egg parasitoids already at work, and where the samurai wasp stands today.
What happens inside the fruit from bloom to the cold store, why the 6.2 Brix threshold was transferred uncritically from New Zealand, and the trial showing that early harvest costs storage life.
Three calculations made every day by eye, and for that reason wrong. How many kilograms of fertiliser a nutrient target needs, what was really applied over the season, and how much manure it takes to lift the organic matter of the soil.
