The August heat wraps around the Tuscan countryside. The machines have gone back to their barn. The tractors have stopped trying to work the ground, hardened by the sun. At dawn, the cool, crisp air is sometimes broken by a farmer stacking dry hay.
Nature is all about calm and rest.
However, in this heavy heat, a little bug is very busy: the olive fruit fly, trying to lay its eggs in the young olives. The fruits, weakened by the larvae, will fall to the ground before they reach maturity.
A few decades ago, pesticides were preventively and systematically used against the olive fruit fly. But today, sustainable or organic farmers will instead regularly walk through their olive fields during the summer heat to assess the fly dammage, and decide whether or not to intervene.
If the dammage is minor, we let Nature run its course and accept a few losses.
Then, we have a look at the forecasted temperatures: if they are around 40 degrees for a few days, the larvae will disappear by themselves...
Otherwise, we can install fly traps in the trees, or use targeted and appropriate treatment on the affected olive fields.
The elders had an interesting technique. They used to plant Ascolano olive trees at the border of their olive fields. These trees produce large, table olives, a few months before most olives reach their maturity; the flies then neglect the other oil olives, less fleshy.
Sustainable agriculture is based on a symbiotic relationship with nature, but it also implies more work, and higher production costs.