The Azores have the necessary conditions to request the European Union the recognition of the Nematode-free Area status (plant parasites) concerning the genera Globodera and Radopholus.
The recognition of the Azores as a Protected Area will reinforce the implementation of measures to prevent the introduction and spread of these two harmful species of nematodes in the region’s soil and prevent further damages to crops, particularly in the potato crop, thus safeguarding regional production.
This proposal will be presented by the Regional Secretariat for Agriculture and Forestry to the Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries, who will later submit it to the Standing Committee on Health Plant of the European Union.
In order to confirm the absence of these parasites in the region’s soil and to know the population density levels of the major genera of plant parasitic nematodes in different soil types and vegetation covers, the Regional Secretariat for Agriculture and Forestry started an extensive prospecting work to search that type of nematodes on the island of São Miguel in 2006.
In subsequent years, the same prospecting work was carried out on the remaining islands with the collaboration of various Agricultural Development departments. During this four-year period nearly four thousand soil samples were collected and analyzed in the laboratory.
The results obtained during these four years are now disclosed in a book published by the Regional Secretariat for Agriculture and Forestry, which will to support the proposal to recognize the Azores as a nematode-free area regarding the genera G. rostochiensis and G.pallida (for the latter species of nematodes, the European Union has only acknowledged Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland and Latvia as protected areas).