For several weeks more and more cypress trees that now have large areas yellowed and withered have been recorded. What’s going on?
Creating these phenomena is an aphid called Cinaria cupressi which normally lives on cypress trees. This year, because of two not particularly cold winters and a rainy and cool summer (the last one), it has reproduced in an uncontrolled manner causing a sharp attack which has caused the drying-up of most of the cypress trees even present in the Bagno a Ripoli municipality.
The cypresses attacked by the Cinara have a reddened foliage in a more or less extended manner, even up to the extent of particularly serious situations in which the entire plant appears completely damaged. In most cases the cypresses have patchy redness and more or less extensive portions of hair still unharmed and green.
Obviously there are treatments, made from specific aphicides, but seeing that during the summer the Cinaria moves into the soil under the foliage of the plant, an effort should be made to carry out these treatments in the months of March/April.
It should also be clarified that the damage caused by these aphids are not definitive given that the cypresses are able to drive back new branches from temporary buds resulting in a vegetative growth of the shoots and the affected branches.
Lisa Volpi
