Within the community services provided by the College of Agriculture at the University of Basra, the research team consisting of the two teachers in the Department of Plant Protection in the College of Agriculture, Dr. Ali Zaji Abdul Qader and Professor Alaa Odeh Maneh, visited the palm orchards in the city district after an appeal by the owners of the affected orchards, and the visit included Conducting field surveys, taking samples from the affected areas, isolating the most important pathogens, and detecting pathogens and insect pests that cause deterioration of palm trees in the district. The visit aims to find out the extent of the date palm’s infestation with disease and insect pests and to treat them using modern research methods At the end of the visit, a comprehensive report was prepared and came out with recommendations, the most important of which are 1- The symptoms appearing on palm trees in the affected orchards were not caused by palm blight disease as was believed, but rather are symptoms of deterioration of palm trees as a result of infection with different types of the fungus Fusarium that cause cases of stiffness and yellowing of the leaves and wilting of the taste 2- This deterioration was accompanied by the appearance of many symptoms of leaf spot on the affected palm 3- The presence of many insect infestations, the most important of which are the palm stem borer with long horns, the frond borer and the date palm borer 4- It is believed, according to previous studies, that the salinity of the irrigation water had a profound effect on weakening the palm trees and increasing disease and insect infestations, which was suggested by the researchers. 5- No cases of palm blight disease appeared on all palm trees in the visited orchards.
