Odd scale like pests on areca palms

[BLoeppke]

I live near the central Gulf Coast of FL south of Tampa. I have several areca plam clumps that are around 10' tall. Most of the upper fronds have these tiny, odd looking, non-moving, scale like pests that attach themselves rather firmly to the central vein on the underside of each leaf (pictures attached). I have searched MANY websites, but have not found ANY pests that resemble these. The affected fronds begin to turn yellow, then orange and eventually wither and die. I have cut the worst fronds away and have tried spraying the underside of EACH FROND with a solution of a pint of water with a teaspoon of liquid dishsoap as recommended for common areca pests.  However, I can see that newly emerged fronds are still getting infested with these things.

I have two questions:

• What are these things?
• How can I get rid of them?

[kinzyjr]

@BLoeppke Welcome to PalmTalk!  At this point, I'm unsure of what the pest in question might be, but you could try getting a broad spectrum insecticide from a big box store and spraying one of them to see if it is effective.

[Silas_Sancona]

8 hours ago, BLoeppke said:

I live near the central Gulf Coast of FL south of Tampa. I have several areca plam clumps that are around 10' tall. Most of the upper fronds have these tiny, odd looking, non-moving, scale like pests that attach themselves rather firmly to the central vein on the underside of each leaf (pictures attached). I have searched MANY websites, but have not found ANY pests that resemble these. The affected fronds begin to turn yellow, then orange and eventually wither and die. I have cut the worst fronds away and have tried spraying the underside of EACH FROND with a solution of a pint of water with a teaspoon of liquid dishsoap as recommended for common areca pests.  However, I can see that newly emerged fronds are still getting infested with these things.

I have two questions:

• What are these things?
• How can I get rid of them?

Those look like the Palm leaflet appendage thingys you see on Kings and / or Kentia leaflets,  whose name i can't think of atm,  rather than an insect like Scale..

[Silas_Sancona]

5 minutes ago, Silas_Sancona said:

Those look like the Palm leaflet appendage thingys you see on Kings and / or Kentia leaflets,  whose name i can't think of atm,  rather than an insect like Scale..

Ramenta..    That's the word i was looking for..

[Merlyn]

@Silas_Sancona I was going to say "tomentum," because I didn't know there was a different word for it.  @BLoeppke if you can post a picture of the whole Areca palm people here might be able to figure out what's going on.  In many cases it's a nutrient deficiency that can be fixed with fertilizer, but it could be something else like a disease.

[Silas_Sancona]

31 minutes ago, Merlyn said:

@Silas_Sancona I was going to say "tomentum," because I didn't know there was a different word for it.  @BLoeppke if you can post a picture of the whole Areca palm people here might be able to figure out what's going on.  In many cases it's a nutrient deficiency that can be fixed with fertilizer, but it could be something else like a disease.

Technically, Tomentum and Ramenta are slightly different / serve a different function..

A couple past threads on the subject:
 

 

As far as the original post, would like to see the entire palm too.  Leaves in the pictures posted look healthy to my eyes..

 

[DoomsDave]

13 hours ago, BLoeppke said:

I live near the central Gulf Coast of FL south of Tampa. I have several areca plam clumps that are around 10' tall. Most of the upper fronds have these tiny, odd looking, non-moving, scale like pests that attach themselves rather firmly to the central vein on the underside of each leaf (pictures attached). I have searched MANY websites, but have not found ANY pests that resemble these. The affected fronds begin to turn yellow, then orange and eventually wither and die. I have cut the worst fronds away and have tried spraying the underside of EACH FROND with a solution of a pint of water with a teaspoon of liquid dishsoap as recommended for common areca pests.  However, I can see that newly emerged fronds are still getting infested with these things.

I have two questions:

• What are these things?
• How can I get rid of them?

Welcome!

You asked a great question and keep asking them! We’ll give it you straight.

Nice to meet you and welcome to our joint state of madness!