News The GoPinea project, dedicated to recovering the production of the Iberian pine nut, finishes

he GoPinea project, in which the Institute for Advanced Chemistry of Catalonia (IQAC-CSIC) has collaborated, and which ends in March, presented their final results in Madrid last 16^th of February. Funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the project began in 2019 and aimed to recover the production of the Iberian pine nut, delving into those factors that have contributed to its decline during these years.

Since 2013, a significant reduction in Iberian pine nuts harvests has been detected, as a result of repeated droughts and attacks by the western conifer seed bug Leptoglossus occidentalis, an invasive insect that feeds on the seeds of multiple species of conifers, which in the particular case of the pine pinyon tree has drastically affected the pinyon crop.

The researchers Carme Quero and Sergio López, from the Research Unit on Bioactive Molecules (RUBAM), of the IQAC-CSIC, had as an objective within the project to delve into the biology of the Leptoglossus occidentalis, both in its population dynamics and the moments in which it really causes damage, as well as in the identification of new compounds involved in its chemical communication. Recently, it has been discovered that L. occidentalis males emit a compound called leptotriene with a possible role as an aggregation pheromone, since it is very attractive to both sexes under field conditions. However, the complex structure of leptitriene and the high cost or the synthesis process do not allow there to be a viable solution in the short-medium term for its use as a species control tool. Thus, Carme Quero and Sergio López have addressed the search for alternative compounds as possible systems for monitoring and mass capture of this species of bug. Over four years, they have managed to identify several compounds emitted by the own insect that show activity under laboratory conditions, and whose performance in field tests, although still far from that shown by the leptotriene, has generated promising results in the last year.