Sabal miamiensis x mexicana or maritima hybrid 2023 seed crop fail

[PalmatierMeg]

I just took an a/c break from trimming seed infructescenses from palms in our Caribbean Garden to report a curious finding. My rugged Sabal miamiensis x mexicana or x maritima hybrid, which normally would have 1,000s of developing seeds well on their way to a late Aug/early Sep harvest, is devoid of seeds. It put out inflorescences but these are turning brown and shriveling. It appears the whole 2023 crop of seeds will fail. The palm is otherwise healthy and growing. I can only speculate that the palm is putting its energy toward recovering from the effects of Ian. Even though it appeared to shrug off those brutal cat 4/5 winds, this palm and perhaps others like it still took a beating and have put seed production on hiatus. I saw a similar situation with the few Adonidias that survived the record cold of 2010 - for the next two years no Christmas palms flowered or seeded.

I am still losing palms over 8 months after last 9/28. Most recent was a large Coccothrinax that appeared to be recovering before collapsing and dying over just a couple weeks. I’m afraid others may follow, which shows that even palms that evolved to deal with hurricanes don’t all survive. I’m also concerned about my two Syagrus kellyana and their apparent slow recovery. Fortunately, I have seedling offspring to replace those.

Has anyone else noticed lingering effects in their palms from weather catastrophies? I will try to get some photos although shriveled infructescenses don’t make great photo ops.

[Fusca]

For what it's worth I noticed last year that only a small % of our native Sabal mexicana produced seeds following an unusually dry winter and spring.  They're back to setting seed again this year as we've had normal amounts of rain.  Perhaps that is more evidence that your hybrid is with mexicana.

[PalmatierMeg]

Today I cut off the non-viable infructescenses from this palm and took the photos below. Normally this palm would have flowered and set seeds in late Feb. or March and by early June would be loaded with half grown fruit.

Sabal miamiensis x mexicana hybrid failed infructescenses

[Bigfish]

Meg, it could be the cabbage palm caterpillar, that bores into the inflorescence and causes the seeds to abort.  It makes its little nest in the stem, then eats the flowers.  I lost a couple of inflorescences to them this spring on my miamiensis, but after I noticed them, I sprayed the rest of the inflorescences with Bug B Gone (Bifenthrin) a couple of times while the inflorescence was still young.  It forced all of the caterpillars out of their holes immediately, killed all aphids, and now my miamiensis is absolutely LOADED with flowers.