Badly cut Phoenix Canariensis Please HELP!

[Luca Vit]

Dear all, I found this great community by desperation!

Today my father, God knows why, trimmed my two 18 year Phoenix Canariensis with a saw and this is the result.

the plants live in central Italy west coast near Rome and the seaside, Zone 9b.

Now at the end of July it is very hot with temperatures exceeding 32° C  - 90° F

This is an area where in past years this kind of palms have been decimated by red awl or rhynchophorus ferrugineus.

What can I do?

Thanks for helping

 

[JLM]

Yikes....

Well i can say this, that wound will not heal. Its possible the palm may not live from this, but who knows. My suggestion would be to hit it with copper fungicide treatments, probably weekly for a little while. I have never had any situation like this before and im also not very experience in general. Would take advice from someone with more experience.

Also considering it looks like it has been way over trimmed in the past, its probably a good idea to not trim anymore anything off of it for the next year or so. By cutting green fronds you are taking nutrients from the palm, which hurts it over time.

[floridaPalmMan]

OH NO!!!!!!!! WWWHHHHYYYYYYYYYY??????

12 minutes ago, JLM said:

My suggestion would be to hit it with copper fungicide treatments, probably weekly for a little while. 

^^ This was the first thing I thought of too. Something to help fight off infections.... because..... well....what else can even be done here??

[Merlyn]

Yikes!  I'd definitely hit it with a fungicide, maybe copper-based or dust it with sulfur powder.  A systemic fungicide like Banrot, Aliette WDG, Clearys 3336F, or something similar might help.  I'm not sure what systemics are available in Italy.  The only good thing is that at least in that photo he may not have cut into the palm heart.  So it's possible that the old frond bases will just brown over and it'll keep growing normally. 

If you are concerned about beetle attacks you could give it a systemic insecticide with something like Imadicloprid or Dinotefuran as the active ingredient.  Then keep an eye out for any signs of beetle holes on your palms or on others in your neighborhood.

[spike]

Oh man. Hopefully keeping it dry will avoid it getting infected. On the bright side I don't think the actual trunk was damaged a lot, it was mainly leaf bases that were cut off. (edit: what @Merlyn said, I think we had the same thought)

Relevant picture from another post:

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by spike