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USING WATER STRATEGICALLY AND EFFICIENTLY

My wife and I are back from holidays. As a post COVID catch up we decided on some time in southern Italy and we stayed at a small unit in Lecce for nearly three weeks. We had a small car and each day we went exploring “the heal”. Not really a tourist but a fly by I suppose. We got to know the locals and it was great fun. The heal is pancake flat and for hundreds of kilometres there are only olive groves.

Really harsh soils and I suspect nothing much else would grow there. The trees are old – huge, gnarled trunks maybe 300 years (?) old or more. ALL DEAD!

Lecce was built (and became quite wealthy) on olives and olive oil (remembering olive oil was the oil of preference used for lighting before electricity). Now it sits in a dead forest killed by a bacteria that attacked the trees suffering from water stress over the earlier 2000’s. Very similar to the cypress pine here. And they don’t have a solution yet.

It is incredibly sad but also a lesson in agriculture. In dryer times we need to get the irrigation right. Not necessarily using more water but just use it strategically and efficiently.

We are happy to help with all things water at WSS.

Regards,

Jack

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