Queen Palm collapsed & died - HELP!

[PalmatierMeg]

About 3 p.m. while we were prepping for the latest cold front, we noticed that one of our 7 large queen palms has collapsed and died - no warnings aside from death. I've had these palms over 20 years and they are the canopy for my shade garden. Now I've got a large hole in that canopy through which the summer sun will fry my understory palms.

I took the following 5 photos showing this palm. Any ideas what pest/disease might have caused this? Are my other queens at risk for same? I will need to replace this palm within a few months, if possible, with another canopy palms (but no more queens). Any suggestions that aren't monsters, i.e., kings, Livistonas? FYI, no tree trimmers have stepped foot into our yard for 10 years.

Help!

Dead Queen (RIP)

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Better climb in there and make sure it's not full of weevils or palm moths.

[DoomsDave]

YIKE!

Meg, that sucks!

Axel isn't being flip by his suggestion, though I suspect that climbing up there is something you'd prefer to delegate.

Show the delegatee: (1) pictures of weevils and larvae; (2) palm moth, same; (3) fungus. Ask him or her to sniff the top and see if anything's rotten up there.

I don't think you have canker ("conks" would be present at the base).

Let us know what you find out. We'd hate to see this get worse.

[Phoenikakias]

Holy sh...! I fear I am having soon the same problem with my biggest L decora, and if this happens I am sure about the reason Top end has obtained a very strange inclination.

[Gonzer]

Only one solution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtUH2YSFlVU

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

I am serious about the palm weevil. Cut queen fronds are a massive attractor for the palm weevil and the weevil is the most likely reason for the decline. If you want to save the rest of your palms, make sure the crown is lowered carefully and inspect it for weevils.

[Rory]

If the palms canopy declined pretty quickly it could be Fusarium Wilt, which is relatively common with queens in Florida. It looks like all of the leaves have already died, which makes it difficult to tell if that was the cause though. Two other diseases that can affect queens and cause the crown to collapse are Ganoderma and Texas Phoenix Palm Decline.

[Mandrew968]

Merry Christmas!!!!! I wish that happened to all of the ones in my neighborhood! What a gift from the palm world, granted nothing happens to the rest of your palms, Meg.

[redant]

If the palms canopy declined pretty quickly it could be Fusarium Wilt, which is relatively common with queens in Florida. It looks like all of the leaves have already died, which makes it difficult to tell if that was the cause though. Two other diseases that can affect queens and cause the crown to collapse are Ganoderma and Texas Phoenix Palm Decline.

I agree with Fusarium Wilt, it seems very prevalent in these parts.

[redant]

Merry Christmas!!!!! I wish that happened to all of the ones in my neighborhood! What a gift from the palm world, granted nothing happens to the rest of your palms, Meg.

Some people are not palm snobs and like all kinds of palms. I'm sure Meg would prefer to keep her queens.

[Mandrew968]

Merry Christmas!!!!! I wish that happened to all of the ones in my neighborhood! What a gift from the palm world, granted nothing happens to the rest of your palms, Meg.

Some people are not palm snobs and like all kinds of palms. I'm sure Meg would prefer to keep her queens.

Some people just don't know they can do better. Here's to those who know they can!

[PalmatierMeg]

We called a tree removal guy today and are awaiting a call back. We want him to let us look inside the crown once he takes it down. I wondered about wilt too. Depending on what we find we may replant a palm.

I know queens are widely despised on the forum but these have done a great job of shielding my shade palms so the loss of even 1 of these 25-30' beasts is a problem for us. Ironically, they may be the nicest, largest and best fed queens in Cape Coral. No matter what we will persevere.

[Walt]

I've lost about 6-7 mature queen palms two years ago, all from Ganoderma butt rot. Fronds started collapsing at a fast rate. Most trunk bases had white to brownish conks on them, plus some weeping a rusty colored ooze. Once the tree trimmer cut them down you could see the discolored cross section of the trunk where they were rotting.

As a test, I planted a small queen palm (they come up all over on my property) that I had been pot growing for about a year, next to the cut off trunk of the dead queen palm. It took two years, but the new queen palm got infected and only has one green frond left, and that frond is now starting the yellowish-brown color on the outer leaf tips that indicate it's dying.

[spockvr6]

I've lost about 6-7 mature queen palms two years ago, all from Ganoderma butt rot. Fronds started collapsing at a fast rate. Most trunk bases had white to brownish conks on them, plus some weeping a rusty colored ooze. Once the tree trimmer cut them down you could see the discolored cross section of the trunk where they were rotting.

As a test, I planted a small queen palm (they come up all over on my property) that I had been pot growing for about a year, next to the cut off trunk of the dead queen palm. It took two years, but the new queen palm got infected and only has one green frond left, and that frond is now starting the yellowish-brown color on the outer leaf tips that indicate it's dying.

Yes....a very nasty palm disease.

Just 2 months ago, one of my neighbors Queens (a very big old one......maybe 40-50 ft) was found lying on his neighbors roof, with the trunk snapped at the base. I went over and looked closely.....the conk shelves were all over the base. The trunk was hidden in some shrubs so no one noticed until it fell over.

My neighbor took the safe approach and had all the Queens in front removed.

[Mandrew968]

For those places where ganoderma is in the soil--can you plant a Cycad? Are Cycads susceptable to this fungus as well?

[Walt]

For those places where ganoderma is in the soil--can you plant a Cycad? Are Cycads susceptable to this fungus as well?

Little chance other species of plants are affected by Ganoderma zonatum. See this: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pp100

[sonoranfans]

Merry Christmas!!!!! I wish that happened to all of the ones in my neighborhood! What a gift from the palm world, granted nothing happens to the rest of your palms, Meg.

be careful what you wish for... If there was ganoderma zonatum in your neighborhood, it could eventually spread and kill your palms too...and possibly contaminate the soil for the future.

[Mandrew968]

Merry Christmas!!!!! I wish that happened to all of the ones in my neighborhood! What a gift from the palm world, granted nothing happens to the rest of your palms, Meg.

be careful what you wish for... If there was ganoderma zonatum in your neighborhood, it could eventually spread and kill your palms too...and possibly contaminate the soil for the future.

Very true and a valid nightmare for me. I did not, however, wish ganoderma on Meg. I like Meg and would not wish ganoderma on even people I did not like--BAD KARMIC WEIGHT. Ganoderma did not get Meg's palm, from what I recall... I just wished for no queens in my neighborhood...

[PalmatierMeg]

After several attempts we found a tree trimmer who actually returns calls. I think he is coming out tomorrow for an estimate. He says he wil have no trouble IDing the killer.

According to my research on a UF website, the fusarium wilt that attacks queens infects only Syagrus romanzoffiana and Washingtonia robusta. We have one W.r. that looks fine and I am ambivalent about losing that because they are so weedy.

So, is all this true? Are the various Archo, Kentiopsis, Chamaedoreas, Howeas, Veitchias, Dictyosperma, Dypsis, Livistonas resistant to this disease/infection? How about Attalea? I'm thinking of replacing the dead queen with one of those.

[Jim in Los Altos]

Bump...Meg, what did you eventually do with the area that the big queen palm resided in?

[PalmatierMeg]

Bump...Meg, what did you eventually do with the area that the big queen palm resided in?

Jim, all my queens are gone now - fusiarum wilt was knocking them off en masse, so we had our tree man take them all down. We still have some crown pieces left that were too huge to budge, so we turned them into garden ornaments. I have a huge gap in my canopy that will take time to replace. I can't afford to bring in trunking palms, which would probably cause even more damage to my jungle. So I am planting young plants that I've grown from seeds, i.e. Ptycho elegans, and fast-growing palms I pick up at decent prices during local garden sales, i.e., a coconut, various king & Veitchia species. They are stopgap palms that I can remove later without too much angst. Srecifically regarding the queen in my post, I planted the mutant, bifid leaf Elaeis guineensis I got from Tom Walters in MD. It is about 4' tall now and I hope it will get tall enough this summer to offer sun relief to my Howea forsteriana & H. belmoreana now it is fully exposed to sun. Otherwise, I can only pray our ferocious summer sun doesn't burn yet more holes in my jungle