Blight continues to threaten olive crop in Italy

First drought, now blight. Widespread bacterial infection has already destroyed thousands of olive trees across Italy’s Puglia region, with numbers only forecast to rise sharply, adding to the economic effects of droughts in Spain and California. The insect-borne bacterium xylella fastidiosa has infected trees across 74,000 acres in Puglia, which makes up Italy’s “heel” in the south.