Current situation after Xylella fastidiosa first outbreak in an olive grove in mainland Spain

A first case of infection caused by Xylella fastidiosa subsp. multiplex ST6 was detected in an olive tree in the municipality of Villarejo de Salvanés, in the southeast of the Community of Madrid (Spain) in April 2018. This constituted the first detection of X. fastidiosa in this crop on the Iberian Peninsula, and the second concerning other crops after the detection of the pathogen in almond trees in Alicante, in the Valencian Community (Spain), where X. fastidiosa subsp. multiplex ST6 was also identified, although until now it has not been detected causing infection in olive trees in that region.
The Community of Madrid accounts for 27,000 hectares of olive trees, most of them in Villarejo de Salvanés. This area has a continental climate, with below zero minimum winter temperatures. After the official declaration of the outbreak, the actions established in the European Decision 2017/2352, the Contingency Plan against X. fastidiosa of the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and that of the Community of Madrid were immediately applied to eradicate the bacterium and prevent its spread.
Among these measures, around 2,000 samples from olive trees and other host plants of the demarcated area (DA), 300 insect vectors, and olive trees from other municipalities were analysed. All of them gave a negative result by real-time PCR official protocols. As a direct consequence of the application of the eradication measures, the results obtained so far would indicate that this detection was a unique event and the bacterium would be neither disseminated nor established in the EU, although surveillance measures within the DA must continue as established in the Action Plan of the Community of Madrid.