Xylella fastidiosa: 10 plants banned from sale in the Alpes-Maritimes – Le Point

Alpes-Maritimes prefecture should be taken “as soon as possible” an order of 10 plant sales ban to fight against the spread of the killer bacterium Xylella fastidiosa, announced Thursday the prefect Adolphe Colrat, after a meeting with growers and elected officials.

The 10 species concerned are sycamore, broom Tenerife, false broom bearberry, rosemary, the false Spanish broom , the shrub speedwell, toothed lavender and its hybrids, common myrtle, scented pelargonium and polygale with myrtle leaves.

“These plants will be recorded in nurseries until further notice,” said AFP François Goussé, who heads the Regional Directorate of Agriculture, Food and Forestry. These 10 species are among the most likely to be contaminated with the bacteria, said this official, which states that “the contamination can be done by insects, but also when cutting or cuttings.”

Torn and incinerated by municipal services

These measures should apply to the whole of the Alpes-Maritimes department, came after the discovery of a plant damage by the disease there A week in Nice, which was the first proven case of presence of the bacteria in metropolitan France. According to the State services, the bacterium detected in Nice would be the subspecies ‘multiplex’, the same as that detected in Corsica on more than a hundred plants to date and does not address, in contrast the Italian strain with olive trees.

Located on a median, the plant concerned, a polygale in myrtle leaves, and a score of other plants of the same species of already been uprooted and incinerated by municipal services. The LR deputy mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi said at the meeting in the prefecture that these plants had been purchased from a nursery which itself had supplied to an Italian producer.

D ‘ Other measures will also be taken in the area where the infected plant has been found. Within 100 meters of the embankment, the prefecture, with the assistance of the department, on Friday will send a team to disinsect, rip and burn the plants if they will be part of the list of 10 suspicious cash . This support operation by the authorities concerned sixty individuals.