Royal Palms are Dying all fronds brown

[RuskinPalmsFL]

I had four roughly 20 foot royal palms installed in Tampa Florida in April 2023 .They were watered twice a day for about four months from there. I started weaning off the water. In November, December, fronds started to brown and fall, but this was only one or two. Fast forward to April May and all the fronds but one or two are brown and the trees all look like they are on a high-speed course to death. I used palm pellets back in February essentially as palm food to balance the nutrients in the water with no change, I had an arborist come in April and change the type of fertilizer/palm food and have been using that for about three weeks with now what looks like even further decay…. Please help

[Bkue]

Not 100% but I have 3 just over a year. Doing good in super dry crap sand. It wasn’t cold, it wasn’t water, I think you used fert maybe too early in the shock cycle. The bigger they are the more shock. They are fairly resilient so wait it out and chill on the chems for a bit. 

[ahosey01]

Back off the fertilizer and add more water.  Royals are not naturally super picky about soil.

As an example of just how much water a palm takes, established Phoenix dactylifera will survive in Arizona's low desert with no supplemental irrigation when they have been well established.  They will not look good, but they'll survive.  However, commercial operations that are trying to get the palms to fruit profusely will apply 250 gallons of water per day per palm.  A royal grows natively in far wetter environments than Phoenix dactylifera.  You can pretty much not over water these.

Also, if you put way too much fertilizer in your soil (which I'm thinking you may have) the added water will leach that out beyond the root zone.

[Merlyn]

I'm assuming this is a duplicate thread of this one:

I don't have any direct experience with Royals, but those are big palms and need a lot of water.  Make sure you are watering the existing root ball area, i.e. the size of the big root ball that came with it when they planted them.  It takes a long time for palms to grow a lot of roots outwards, especially if they are stressed for water and nutrients.  If you pour a lot of water 6 feet from the trunk then the root ball is probably dry.  During the May drought you probably need to do more like 20 gallons per day per palm to get them through this.  Once they are established they'll probably reach to the water table, which I'm guessing is only about 6 feet down in your area.  At that point they'll have all the water they could ever want.

[aztropic]

They all look like they are going to survive. As mentioned by others, WATER is key,and royals like plenty of it. 20 gallons,per DAY, (each) till you see several new fronds produced...

 

aztropic 

Mesa, Arizona 

[sonoranfans]

Royals that size need a lot of water, they also are not fertilizer dependent.  Royals and bismarckia are both used in public plantings here and almost never show a deficiency because they dont need fertilizer, though they will both grow faster with some.  With royals the more water the bigger the crown and fatter the trunk.