Chinese wasp wreaks havoc in Italy

Insect threatens native chestnuts, experts say

(ANSA) - Rome, June 16 - Experts are warning that an outbreak of parasite wasps from China could doom Italian chestnut trees to extinction.''Native chestnut groves are destined to disappear,'' Roberto Botta, a professor of arboriculture at the University of Turin, told a recent meeting of chestnut growers and researchers in Florence.

Chestnut trees account for 10% of Italian forests, covering nearly 2,000 acres spanning all of Italy's twenty regions.Believed to have come to Europe from China as a stowaway aboard imported tree saplings, the oriental chestnut gall wasp (Dryocosmus kuriphilus Yasumatsu) is the autumn fruit's worst enemy, according to Italian chestnuts growers.

The insect emerges between the end of May and July to deposit its eggs in the trees' twig shoots and buds, transforming the would-be chestnuts into larva-filled lumps called ''galls''. The parasite made its European debut in the Piedmont region of Italy in 2002 where it has nearly wiped out a number of local orchards.

''Production at hard-hit chestnut stands in the Piedmont have fallen by as much as 80%,'' according to Luigi Bersellini of the national chestnut growers' association Citta' del Castagno.

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