Panel statement on young pine plants used for afforestation or reforestation as pathway for pinewood nematode (PWN) Bursaphelenchus xylophilus
EFSA Panel on Plant Health (PLH), Antonio Vicent Civera, Paula Baptista, Anna Berlin, Elisavet Chatzivassiliou, Jaime Cubero, Nik Cunniffe, Eduardo de la Peña, Nicolas Desneux, Francesco Di Serio, Anna Filipiak, Paolo Gonthier, Beata Hasiów‐Jaroszewska, Hervé Jactel, Blanca B Landa, Lara Maistrello, · 2026
Read Panel statement on young pine plants used for afforestation or reforestation as pathway for pinewood nematode (PWN) Bursaphelenchus xylophilus by EFSA Panel on Plant Health (PLH), Antonio Vicent Civera, Paula Baptista, Anna Berlin, Elisavet Chatzivassiliou, Jaime Cubero, Nik Cunniffe, Eduardo de la Peña, Nicolas Desneux, Francesco Di Serio, Anna Filipiak, Paolo Gonthier, Beata Hasiów‐Jaroszewska, Hervé Jactel, Blanca B Landa, Lara Maistrello, (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13528453.txt.
Description
An EFSA plant health panel asks whether young pine seedlings planted for new forests could carry the pinewood nematode, a worm that kills pine trees, in a 2026 statement. The worm rides on beetles of the Monochamus genus, which need wood thick enough to complete their growth. Planting stock in question is at most two years old, with stems no wider than 12 millimeters.
The panel measure the seedlings against the beetle's needs. The larva's head is too wide for the thin food layer under a seedling's bark, and its pupal chamber would poke out of the stem. Records of over 2,000 beetle exit holes show success only in branches wider than 20 millimeters. Spread without beetles would need wounded roots to touch, which good practice avoids. The panel call the whole chain of events highly implausible.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | EFSA Panel on Plant Health (PLH), Antonio Vicent Civera, Paula Baptista, Anna Berlin, Elisavet Chatzivassiliou, Jaime Cubero, Nik Cunniffe, Eduardo de la Peña, Nicolas Desneux, Francesco Di Serio, Anna Filipiak, Paolo Gonthier, Beata Hasiów‐Jaroszewska, Hervé Jactel, Blanca B Landa, Lara Maistrello, |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 64 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |