`Will the 'Beast From the East' Affect Olive Groves? - Olive Oil Times
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Will the 'Beast From the East' Affect Olive Groves?

By Ylenia Granitto
Mar. 5, 2018 10:24 UTC

In the last few days, sev­eral European coun­tries were struck by an extra­or­di­nary wave of cold which low­ered tem­per­a­tures below freez­ing. Cities like Rome and Naples were blan­keted in snow and, while author­i­ties and civil pro­tec­tion were han­dling the spe­cial event with the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions, many took advan­tage of this to take a break and wage snow­ball fights in an unusual land­scape.

Growers who had already pruned should beware, as the intense cold of the last few days was not that favor­able to prun­ing wounds, espe­cially in the case of reform oper­a­tions.- Nicolangelo Marsicani

The weather front also called the ​‘Beast from the East,’ in Italy was dubbed ​‘Burian,’ from the Russian word Buran (буран), which is the name of the glacial air flow orig­i­nat­ing in the region of Siberia that gave rise to the cold snap. Many see the extreme weather event as a con­se­quence of cli­mate change, but among mete­o­rol­o­gists, most con­sider this as an ordi­nary con­tin­gency.

Photo by Giuseppe Palestini

“This wave of cold is part of a series of nor­mal cyclic events which occur dur­ing win­ter,” said Massimiliano Morucci, an Italian mete­o­rol­o­gist spe­cial­ized in mid- to long-term Forecasts. ​“This kind of cold spells hap­pen every 8 or 10 years, occa­sion­ally every 6 years. This time, the Burian hit Italy and other Central and Southern European coun­tries more intensely than usual because it reached very low tem­per­a­tures at the level of European Russia,” Morucci explained.

“In my opin­ion, we can­not define this par­tic­u­lar event as a cli­mate change con­se­quence. In any case, we still can­not deter­mine whether cli­mate change is lead­ing us to such an impor­tant mete­o­ro­log­i­cal vari­a­tion.” In sub­stance, what hap­pened would have been caused by a colder flow, due to a nor­mal Siberian depres­sion which always occurs dur­ing this period but now went well beyond the clas­si­cal lat­i­tudes.

Coldiretti, in a pre­lim­i­nary assess­ment of frost dam­ages to agri­cul­ture in Italy, reported losses in crops such as let­tuce, cab­bage, chicory, broc­coli, potato and arti­choke, and indi­rect dis­rup­tions caused by traf­fic restric­tions that hin­der deliv­er­ies.

Photo by Giuseppe Biondino

Farmers are wor­ried about fruit plants like apri­cot, cherry, peach and pear trees since in some areas buds already devel­oped and these are par­tic­u­larly cold-sen­si­tive. The fine weather of pre­vi­ous weeks had, in fact, stim­u­lated veg­e­ta­tive growth in sev­eral regions and now pro­longed tem­per­a­tures below zero are seen has a threat for crops.

Early last year, Mediterranean coun­tries were affected by a sim­i­lar drop in tem­per­a­ture that first caused con­cern and then turned out to have ben­e­fi­cial effects on olive trees.

It is worth recall­ing that cold can affect the wood of olive tree if the min­i­mum tem­per­a­tures drop below ‑7°C (19.4°F) for 8 – 10 days, and seri­ous harm can be caused to the canopy and trunk if they fall below ‑10/-12°C (14/10.4°F) in a few hours.

The hope is that, again this year, low tem­per­a­tures can bring mainly ben­e­fits to the work of olive grow­ers, help­ing them in reduc­ing the olive fruit fly pop­u­la­tion and con­tain­ing fun­gal dis­eases.

“This wave of bad weather does not seem to have dam­aged olive trees in our area,” observed Nicolangelo Marsicani, who pro­duces an award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oil in Sicilì, in the heart of the Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni National Park. ​“Here olive trees were still in veg­e­ta­tive rest and low tem­per­a­tures surely helped to con­tain the onset of pests.”

There are many vari­ables, but we can say that com­pli­ca­tions could arise if and where the veg­e­ta­tive growth of olive trees, before the win­ter rest, was already active. In this case, dam­ages will soon be vis­i­ble, as liq­uids like water and lymph can freeze if exposed to low tem­per­a­tures for too long.

“Growers who had already pruned should beware, as the intense cold of the last few days was not that favor­able to prun­ing wounds, espe­cially in the case of reform oper­a­tions,” our farmer added. ​“Anyway, we have to wait a few weeks to see if plants have been harmed.”

At the moment, some farm­ers reported injuries like branch break­ages on young plants, which are del­i­cate and unpre­pared to bear the weight of the snow, but also on more robust olive trees. Too much snow can, in fact, over­bur­den the sec­ondary branches and cause frac­tures, which, in addi­tion to the imme­di­ate loss, could facil­i­tate the pen­e­tra­tion of olive knot bac­te­ria in more sus­cep­ti­ble vari­eties, Marsicani noted.

On the pos­i­tive side, when it comes to snow, the expan­sion of water upon freez­ing turns out to be use­ful as it causes micro­c­racks in the soil just like a nat­ural tillage. Moreover, if frost lasts for sev­eral days, this will pro­vide a good water reserve, extremely use­ful against sum­mer heat.

Experts remind us that oper­a­tions in the olive groves should be sus­pended until the ground and the veg­e­ta­tion will be dry again and ready to receive the appro­pri­ate prac­tices.



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