King Crown Collapse?

[lpandroc]

Hi everyone...Should I be worried?...Planted in 2019..About 15 feet tall...Seems to be collapsing at crown or its one mean lean to the right. ..Slight penciling but all the others next to it seem fine

 

Any ideas?

 

 

[Merlyn]

@lpandroc I'd guess latent hurricane damage, even though you were on the North side of the eye and a decent distance away.  The lean could be some damage to the lower part of the crownshaft, which is allowing the top to lean over.  How do the new fronds in the center look?  If they are normal, then maybe strapping a 2x4 to it to support the weak area might help?  I've never tried that or seen it done on a crownshafted palm. 

On this one I'd snip off the part of the frond that's dangling, but leave the green crownshafted area in place. 

The only other thing that comes to mind is a boron deficiency.  That's blamed for leaning crowns in Phoenix and Queens and other palms.  But typically you'd see severe leaf deformities long before a crown lean.  I'm inclined (hahahahahahha) to think it's some kind of wind damage.

Edit: it is possible there's some crown fungal rot going on in there too.  I had an Adonidia/Christmas palm stop growing new fronds.  It looked fine for a couple of months until the existing fronds started slowly dying off.  That's when I realized it hadn't grown a new one in several months.  The crown snapped and fell off at the junction between the trunk and the crownshaft.  The entire inside of the upper trunk was stringy brown rotten fungus.  In my case I suspect it was Thielaviopsis.

[lpandroc]

Thanks Merlyn...Im thinking the later...some kind of rot. If thats the case, can I replace it in the same spot?

[Merlyn]

20 hours ago, lpandroc said:

Thanks Merlyn...Im thinking the later...some kind of rot. If thats the case, can I replace it in the same spot?

It depends on the fungal rot, if that's what it turns out to be:

• Bud rot - frequently curable with hydrogen peroxide, Daconil, Mancozeb, or a copper-based fungus.  You can try squirting some hydrogen peroxide into the crown and see if it bubbles.  If so then treat 3x per week with H2O2 followed by Daconil 1-2 hours later.  Quit treating when the H2O2 stops bubbling up.
• Upper trunk rot - Thielaviopsis fungus.  This is incurable and is generally in the top 2-3 feet, just below the point where the old crownshafts fall off.  It's in the air all the time and frequently enters palms through fresh cuts in green tissue.  It's considered safe to replant in the same spot.  You can see pictures of "sudden canopy collapse" here: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/PP143
• Lower trunk rot - Ganoderma fungus.  This stays in the soil for decades, so it may be risky to replant in the same spot with any other palm.  The risk is impossible to put a number on...is it 1% or 86.426%?  No clue.  One PTer decided to test it by cutting down a palm that was killed by Ganoderma, hollowing out the trunk base, and planting another palm directly in the rotted trunk!  Unfortunately NOT A TA passed away a couple of years ago, so I think this is the only remaining photo of the experiment:

• Wind damage - no problem, obviously. 

[Harry’s Palms]

Years ago , we had a problem with many Howea Foresteriana that would just lean over . It seems that the condition has subsided in our area and I’m not sure what caused it. Some of the palms just grew out of it and ended up with a curious “kink” in the trunk years later. It is different with different types of palms or climate influences . We don’t seem to have the same issues here as there is in more humid environments. Harry

[lpandroc]

Well its pretty much fully colalpased...Having an arborist come today. If we can replace it, its going to happen in the same spot. The root ball will be fun to remove

[Harry’s Palms]

Oh man , that is tragic. Sorry to see that. Harry

[lpandroc]

I finally got the trunk down....The following pictures look like its some kind of rot trouhout (thought it may have been the hurricane)...You can see the stump is fine at ground level, but as I went up it toward the top it looks suspicious...Any ideas on what disease killed it?..Merlyn suspected perhaps Thielaviopsis??

[DoomsDave]

@lpandroc ouch! I concur with @Harry’s Palms. Tragic for sure. Looks like you had a case of rot. I’d just take it out. Is there any sign of fungus in the soil? Mycelium from fungi often look like mold strung through the soil.

[lpandroc]

@DoomsDave....No fungus at all..just the rot

[Merlyn]

@lpandroc without a lab test it's mostly guesswork.  From the photos it's hard to say.  If the lower trunk cuts were all sort of an ivory off-white and didn't show random blotches of dark discoloration, then it's unlikely to be a lower trunk fungus like Ganoderma.  The upper trunk does look like a typical Thielaviopsis fungal infection.  Thielaviopsis eats the soft water-carrying tissues and leaves the hard stringy fibers behind.  The huge splits make me think the hurricane is to blame, and the fungus was a secondary opportunistic infection.  As an example, this is an Adonidia/Christmas palm triple I removed ~4 years ago.  It had frost defoliation and then the next summer stopped growing right.  The trunks just collapsed on themselves and were full of black dusty mold:

In my Adonidia it had gone all the way to the base, starting by killing off the top.  I dug it out and tossed the soil out in the grass, just on the off chance that there was a lot of fungus in it. 

For the stump removal, I've been using a reciprocating saw and a 12" carbide-tipped 3TPI Diablo pruning blade.  They cut through roots pretty easily and don't get dull in sandy soil.  Below you can see the stump of a Queen I recently removed.  I did a sort of octagon cut diagonally down into the soil around the trunk, and then sliced and dug out a wedge on one side to get underneath it.  I then used the 4 feet of trunk as a lever to pull it free.  Afterwards I cut the trunk in half with a chainsaw.  You can see the lower trunk is a consident clean off-white color, so no visible signs of fungus.

[Merlyn]

And this is the upper trunk of a different Queen, showing signs of a fungal infection that killed it.  That blotchiness is the fungus eating away at the water-carrying tissues.  If your upper trunk looked like this but turned clean white towards the bottom, then it probably was Thielaviopsis and not Ganoderma.

[lpandroc]

@Merlyn...Ordered the blade from HD...Once i get the stump out is it safe to plant another KIng in the same spot?

[Merlyn]

2 hours ago, lpandroc said:

@Merlyn...Ordered the blade from HD...Once i get the stump out is it safe to plant another KIng in the same spot?

Just be careful not to "force it" with the blades.  The teeth will feel pretty dull for the first 30 seconds or so while the paint wears off, but it should cut fairly easy afterwards.  I usually break the tang off before the teeth actually get dull, but that's because I'm impatient! 

If the lower trunk was ivory/off-white without a lot of splotchiness, then it probably was not Ganoderma that killed it.  The two most likely possibilities (hurricane damage or Thielaviopsis) don't stay in the soil.  So a qualified yes, generally safe to replant in the same spot.