Valencia Scientists’ Palm Tree Plan?
The red palm weevil is a pest, and one that for some years now has been destroying palm trees all over Spain.
Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, as it prefers to be called, is originally from Asia. It arrived in Spain in 1993 at Granada, and has since killed 48,000 palm trees in the Valencian Community alone.
Fortunately, scientists from the University of Alicante may have come up with a solution, a fungus which eats this insect.
Biologist Berenice Güerri founded Glen Biotech, a spin-off of the University of Alicante, where they try to bring biotechnological tools to the market and solve some agricultural problems.
They look for sustainable solutions, which can solve agricultural problems as well as problems in ornamental plants. They believe that biotechnology can help to create controlling tools which can eradicate different pests without causing new problems.
Until now, life for the red palm weevil has been a party, a lot of fun, fun, fun, that should come to an end soon with fungus, fungus, fungus.
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