The French Academy of Agriculture has selected the theses that will compete for the Dufrenoy Silver Medal 2020, which rewards a high quality thesis on a subject related to agriculture. Philippe Stoop, itk’s Director of Research & Innovation, was interested in an applied mathematics thesis on the modeling of the expansion of the olive tree bacterium Xylella fastidiosa. This work shows that the bacterium, although detected for the first time in Corsica in 2015, was probably imported several decades ago. They will thus make it possible in the future to better organize the monitoring of its expansion in France, a subject that is all the more critical since it has meanwhile spread to continental Provence.
Predict and Decide