sdu faculty of forestry journal special edition 2009 - Orman Fakültesi

SDÜ Faculty of Forestry Journal
due primarily to insects Ernobius impressithorax, (Coleoptera,Anobiidae)
(Dioryctria mendacella Stgr. (Lepidoptera, Pyralidae), Pissodes validirostris Gyll.
(Coleoptera, curculionide), small mammals (squirrels and dormouse)
(CanakcioglU, 1969; Roques, 1983; El Hassani and Messaoudi, 1986; Innocenti
and Tiberi, 2002) and fungi, mainly Diplodia pinea (Petri, 1917; Petri and Adani,
1916; Verona, 1950; Maresi et al., 2002). More recently a new alien insect,
Leptoglossus occidentalis Heidemann (Heteroptera Coreidae), was accidentally
introduced in Italy (Bernardinelli and Zandigiacomo, 2001) and contribute to
enhance the amount of seed damages.
Since the 2006-2007 the amount of seed production dropped down causing
serious economic concern for the market and several survey activities were
organized in order to evaluate the main causes of seed losses.
2. MATERIALS AND METHODS
The studies on the reduction of seed production from P. pinea trees were carried
out in Tuscany, Central Italy during the period 2006 – 2008 in different pine
forests. Two areas were located in the North, close to Pisa, in the Regional Park
“Parco Migliarino S. Rossore Massaciuccoli” MSRM-1 (Migliarino) and MSRM-2
(Tirrenia), while the third was situated in the South of region, close to Grosseto, in
the “Parco Naturale della Maremma” PNM (Alberese). All the mentioned areas are
particularly large pinewood forests from where every year cones are usually
harvested and seeds are send to the market.
The study was organized following different aspects:
2.1. - Surveying on the Occurrence of D. pinea on cones of different age.
Pinewood areas MSRM-1 and MSRM-2.
a) Occurrence of D. pinea on immature 1- 2 yr-old cones. During the winter
2006 five trees were felled and 150 green cones (n.100 1yr-old and n.50 2yr
old samples) were randomly collected from the crown. Cones were then put
in moist chambers up to 15 days and regularly checked to detect the
occurrence of D. pinea (Feducci, 2007).
b) Occurrence of D. pinea on mature and old cones lying on the ground.
Pinewood area MSRM-1. About 600 cones were collected under the pine
crown in order to detect the occurrence of the fungus. Cones were ranked
according to the age (1, 2 >2 yrs) and percentage of scales cover by pycnidia
(< 15% ; 15 – 50 ; > 50%) (Pepori, 2006).
2.2. Detecting the inoculum availability from mature cones on the ground.
Pinewood area MSRM-1. A sample of 135 cones was collected from 5 different
particles under the crown of 27 pines. Cones were processed according to Munck
and Stanosz (2009). The method was modified and adjusted to the size of cones
(350 ml of water was used in rinsing the cones). A conidia suspension was
42