areca palms dying??

Joshua Rugg

we have been trying to figure out why this row of areca palms are dying. i did an inspection and noticed they had mulched the row with bark chips 3 inches deep!

there are soo many critteres in the soil including suger ants and potato bugs. the stems of the palms are soft even though the heads are green with a few dead fronds. when you go to move the palm by the head the whole darn thing falls off! any clues? thanks

we decided to go ahead and excavate the mulch away from the palms and kill all the bugs with a fertilizer/bug killer. are we crazy?

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Stihl
MS192T 14"
MS200T 16"
MS261 16"
MS440 25"

Husqvarna 359 20"
394XP 32"

Poulan P3314 14" ( new hire/groundy saw)

Joshua Rugg

heres some photos of the palms in question.

does this look like ganoderma rot???

Attached Thumbnails

     

__________________
Stihl
MS192T 14"
MS200T 16"
MS261 16"
MS440 25"

Husqvarna 359 20"
394XP 32"

Poulan P3314 14" ( new hire/groundy saw)

Eric Frei

Palm disease information

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Joshua Rugg

thanks eric i was going to call you and talk to you a bit bout treating this. we have finished removing the bark mulch which was a breading ground for this crap. tomorrow were removing the dead and infected palms then treating the live ones with fertilizer and bug killer. whats a good anti fungicide that can be mixed with water for a large scale job?

__________________
Stihl
MS192T 14"
MS200T 16"
MS261 16"
MS440 25"

Husqvarna 359 20"
394XP 32"

Poulan P3314 14" ( new hire/groundy saw)

Eric Frei

Without knowing your target infection it is tough.

I would do a compost tea drench with trichoderma and Seasol + Liquid Blood/bone.

As far as the palms go they are spray-able size, so a general fungicide which is copper based would be my pick, copper oxychloride here.

Very tough to save palms which have succumb to fungal infection.

Also, and not because it is documented or mentioned in text by some scientist but from real world experience, treat them with Imidacloprid. That will nail any bugs/insects which may be spreading the fungal infection. I have seen some bloody solid results treating fungal infected trees with it, it kills off another bunch of no good pest pathogens, whether they are secondary or primary is irrelevant, just kill the bastids.

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