Phylloxera

The phylloxera invasion of Madeira, says F. de Almeida e Brito in a report published in 1883, was confirmed in 1872. By then many vineyards had already been lost and land laid completely waste in the municipalities of Funchal and Câmara de Lobos (‘seals’ den’), which suggests that the disease had been present here since 1865 at least. According to the same agronomist, the pest was brought to Madeira in cuttings of the Isabella, or American vine, which had been admitted to cultivation because of its proven resistance to oidium or mangra (powdery mildew of the vine, oidium). This opinion was shared by many of the island’s winegrowers, who had closely followed the course and development of the new disease.

Madeirans had several times asked the government to provide them with the means to resist the terrible scourge that was devastating the island’s vineyards, but only in 1883 were these requests partly granted. In June of that year inspector Almeida e Brito was sent here, and he immediately launched a campaign against phylloxera, assisted by some landowners, by the livestock intendant (intendente de pecuária) Salvador Gamito de Oliveira and by the president of the District Anti-Phylloxera Committee (Comissão Distrital), the late João de Sales Caldeira.

In 1873 a British subject had applied resin and oil of turpentine, dissolved in hot water, to the roots of many diseased vines. Although this treatment, aided by generous manuring, produced results, it could not be adopted generally because of what it cost the landowners.

In February 1883 carbon disulphide was applied for the first time in some Madeiran vineyards, and this method of treatment was afterwards adopted throughout the island in order to save the plantations that still survived. On the recommendation of the said inspector, a treatment post was set up on a property at the top of São João, with an attached store of carbon disulphide and injectors. It was found that vines which still showed considerable vigour always improved with the use of this insecticide, which was applied at doses of 28 and 24 grams per square metre in simple treatment.

To make it possible to replant the devastated land with reliable American hybrids and stocks, two nurseries of cuttings and rooted vines were set up, one at Ribeirinho (‘little brook’) and the other at Torreão (‘turret’), and as early as 1883 some 60,000 young vines were distributed among the island’s landowners. Riparia, Jacquez, Herbemont, Rupestris, Solonis, Taylor, Clinton, Elsimbro and York Madeira were the first stocks grown in these nurseries; they were followed by Cunningham, Viala, Elvira, Othello, Cinerea, Black Pearl and Gaston Bazile. According to Inspector Almeida e Brito in his report, Taylor was the stock that could be used with greatest confidence in Madeira, since it had ‘already seven years of trial, growing admirably in phylloxera-infested soils’.

Experience showed that this stock did not adapt as well as others to the island’s soils, and so it was gradually replaced by Riparia, Herbemont, Cunningham and Jacquez. The last of these has long been the preferred rootstock for grafting scions of the European vine.

On examining some very well-made preparations of phylloxera in its various stages, made by the British subject Leacock, Inspector Almeida e Brito found no hibernating insects among them, as there are on the mainland. This led him to conclude that the parasite leads a life of constant activity in Madeira, and that this was why it destroyed the island’s beautiful vineyards with such intensity and speed.

Phylloxera was not known on Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’) until around 1895, and the stocks on clay soils were the ones it devastated most. On sandy soils few vineyards were attacked by the insect, which was doubtless carried to that island in young vines from Madeira.

According to Inspector Almeida e Brito, the area under vines in 1883 did not exceed 500 hectares, and the harvest could be estimated at 3,500 pipas, whereas before the appearance of phylloxera the area had been 2,500 hectares, with production reaching 16,000 pipas.

Phylloxera and the galls it produces have long ceased to be observed in Madeiran vineyards, but this does not mean that the dreadful hemipteran has entirely disappeared from our island. The great difficulty of preserving or propagating the old grape varieties, except by grafting them on to resistant hybrids or American stocks, and the appearance of the insect on Porto Santo many years after it had ceased to be recorded in Madeira, lead us to believe that Phylloxera vastatrix is not wholly extinct here. It is the cruellest enemy of Vitis vinifera, the plant which from the 16th century contributed so much, through its abundant and excellent yields, to fostering the island’s wealth and securing the well-being of many of its inhabitants.