Dying Mex Palms - How ?

[tstex]

Hello to All,

The enclosed pic is my neighbors houses across the street there 75% of the dead or dying palms are on one side and the other 25% on the other nbors house.

I noticed 1, maybe 2 dead/dying palms about 3-4 weeks ago, but now this looks like it is spreading.  We've had plenty of rain, all of these have been recently trimmed, so what could be causing this?  Is there a soil-borne virus or something, or can this be spreading via the upper fronds?

Wanted to see if someone knew so I could go talk to them. if you have any questions, I will go ask.

Thanks, tstex

 

[tstex]

did a little research - is this Fusarium Wilt?

It seems the underpinning fronds die then it moves to the crown - this seems to have been the case from my observation.  we have queen palms in our front yard and this disease hits Mex & queen palms via an airborne pathogen.  if so, is there any preventative things we can do?  Thank you.

[Really full garden]

If it had been one or two planted very closely I would have guessed a lightning strike.

[tstex]

Thanks Scott - I did not think of lightening, but that's a good guess - we have had some hits here, but nothing that close [while I was here] that I can recall in the last 4 weeks...even the smaller one in the front looks like the fronds are starting to die...

is the picture clear enough or do I need to do a zoom-in shot?

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

4 hours ago, tstex said:

did a little research - is this Fusarium Wilt?

It seems the underpinning fronds die then it moves to the crown - this seems to have been the case from my observation.  we have queen palms in our front yard and this disease hits Mex & queen palms via an airborne pathogen.  if so, is there any preventative things we can do?  Thank you.

Very likely Fusarium Wilt.  Not much one can do except replace with a species thats not susceptible.  Its known to kill Phoenix canariensis, Queens and W. robusta.  I'm not aware of it killing other palm species but I'd certainly avoid planting any palms of these genera back in that spot.  

[PalmatierMeg]

If it's wilt (and I've learned this the hard way), palms die very quickly - a few weeks or less. Looks like your neighbor's palms are dropping dead in quick succession. Because they are tall your might not be able to detect the telltale sign of wilt: leaves die on one side first, then the other, so a leaf will be yellow or brown on one side, green on the other. Also, wilt affected leaves are a peculiar grayish brown color different from dead leaves of healthy palms.

Sorry, but looks like all those palms are goners. They need to be cut down, cut up and hauled away for burning and all cutting tools disinfected. All other Washies, queens, mules & canaries in the immediate area may be on borrowed time too. What a bummer.

[tstex]

how far an area is infection possible, given the information you have?

our queens and Mediterranean palms are in the front yard about 200 ft away, and lie West of these infected palms...the winds are predominately S to SE...I'm watching all the palms in the area to determine a path, if warranted.

Our queens just survived a tough freeze this winter and are making a nice comeback- sure hate to see this happen to them and others

[PalmatierMeg]

It can be spread by contaminated pruning tools. Did your neighbor hire someone to trim his palms in the last year or so? You would think professional tree cutters would always disinfect their tools between customers but I suspect many don't. But you can't prove that after the fact. That may be how my large queens were infected. However, the wilt killed off my small queens, both mules and finally my 30' Washy, which was never trimmed (dead fronds blew down regularly). How this fatal disease is otherwise spread I'm not sure: insect? wind? soil? all of the above?

Your neighbor's palms need to come down and that won't be cheap. Aside from spreading disease, the pose a falling hazard to his house and possibly nearby houses. It cost us $375 to take down our queen in one piece ($500 if the tree man had to climb it to cut it into sections). But our back yard is a virtual jungle, so he had to angle it across the end of our canal into a vacant lot beyond. Tree trimmers may work cheaper in TX than in FL and he may work a deal to have them all taken out en masse - a quantity discount.

Really sorry to hear this.

[tstex]

Thanks Meg - they had them recently trimmed, twice [last 2-3 months ago] in two different batches.  I think I can see even more of their palms [moving our way] that have lower fronds that are dying real quickly, vs the normal gradual dying...these have both dead and live combinations on the same frond...They have about 20-25 of these on front and back.  They are out of town too - went over yesterday and no one home..

[PalmatierMeg]

Ouch, ouch, ouch! BTW, my last post had a mistake: our W. robusta (not queen) cost $375 to take down. But 20-25 of them? That's one disadvantage of one-species plantings. Our 7 large queens probably cost us $700 to take down over the course of 14 months. Then we had the pleasure of taking out an additional 6 smaller queens and 2 mule palms ourselves because of this abomination.

[PalmatierMeg]

I've posted these photos before but they are very educational about this disease.

1) This is a frond from one of my dying queens showing the distinctive lopsided die-off characteristic of this wilt. One side is still vibrant green, the other yellow & brown

2) This is my mortally ill Washy, 30-40' tall. We planted it in 1993. I looked one day and saw this. I knew right away what was wrong. The palm was very far along but I could still detect a half green, half brown frond. That day we called our tree cutter.

3) Our tree man deftly cut it down so it fell across our canal into a vacant lot.

4) From the vacant lot, the tree cutters sliced up our Washy and trucked it away. In the following photo note the rusty brown ring inside the trunk. That is also a visual sign of fusarium wilt infection.

 

[tstex]

real bummer meg - sorry for the losses of all your palms like that...hopefully your cutters disinfected their cutting tools after doing yours...do you know how your palms contracted the disease?

Edited July 24, 2017 by tstex

[tstex]

PS - that is a long straight trunk - can you do anything w the wood ?

[PalmatierMeg]

I begged the boss man to disinfect. Whether he did or not I don't know. How all my palms got the disease? I don't really know, perhaps from infected cutting tools. But how it spread to my mules, small queens & Washy, all never subjected to tree cutters? I don't know - wind? through the soil?

Unfortunately, the Washy's trunk was riddled with disease and useless. It had to go away fast.

[Alicante]

I would like to know the same. Here where I live in Spain I've seen a big single Washingtonia looking like that, while all of his "brothers" (others Washingtonias near it) look perfect and living. But this one barely has a few fronds, they're yellow and looking downwards. 

[kinzyjr]

On 7/23/2017, 1:54:17, PalmatierMeg said:

It can be spread by contaminated pruning tools. Did your neighbor hire someone to trim his palms in the last year or so? You would think professional tree cutters would always disinfect their tools between customers but I suspect many don't. But you can't prove that after the fact. That may be how my large queens were infected. However, the wilt killed off my small queens, both mules and finally my 30' Washy, which was never trimmed (dead fronds blew down regularly). How this fatal disease is otherwise spread I'm not sure: insect? wind? soil? all of the above?

Your neighbor's palms need to come down and that won't be cheap. Aside from spreading disease, the pose a falling hazard to his house and possibly nearby houses. It cost us $375 to take down our queen in one piece ($500 if the tree man had to climb it to cut it into sections). But our back yard is a virtual jungle, so he had to angle it across the end of our canal into a vacant lot beyond. Tree trimmers may work cheaper in TX than in FL and he may work a deal to have them all taken out en masse - a quantity discount.

Really sorry to hear this.

 

7 hours ago, PalmatierMeg said:

I begged the boss man to disinfect. Whether he did or not I don't know. How all my palms got the disease? I don't really know, perhaps from infected cutting tools. But how it spread to my mules, small queens & Washy, all never subjected to tree cutters? I don't know - wind? through the soil?

Unfortunately, the Washy's trunk was riddled with disease and useless. It had to go away fast.

This is exactly the reason I don't allow anyone to trim anything on my property.  I'd rather do it myself and do it right than lose all of my plants due to laziness or negligence.  Our city is losing CIDP's and large phoenix dactyliferas at an exponential rate due to exactly this.  It's a shame.  Sorry to @tstex, @PalmatierMeg, and others who are losing palms to this horrible disease.

[tstex]

Well, here's some overall good news, but sorry it happened.

Our property management company was finally able to get ahold of the nbor across the street.  They said it was a lightening hit.  I saw one dead palm about 4 weeks ago, but 2-3 more over the next 1-2 weeks.  Maybe it takes time for the lightening to fully manifest.  How far can a lightening hit travel to impact neighboring palms??

I'm certainly sorry this happened to them, but it's a relief that it's not F-Wilt.  I'll keep you posted if anything changes _thanks

 

[PalmatierMeg]

Some positive news. Tall Washies in FL are lightning magnets. Unfortunately, those dead Washies still have to come down. But maybe his homeowner's policy will cover most of it.

[cagary]

Never seen a Washie get Wilt here in southern CA, but it slowly kills lots of Queens.

[Sandy Loam]

I did not know that phoenix dactylifera were also falling victim to fusarium wilt until Kinzyjr mentioned it above.

Everyone seems to think that Fusarium Wilt is spread by unsanitized pruning tools, but I have seen infected palms which have obviously never been pruned.  The commonaliy that I have noticed is that infected palms are often close together or just down the street from each other. If my observations are correct, then this pattern might suggest that the disease spreads either in the soil, is airborne, or is spready by certain insects.

 

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

On 7/24/2017, 9:08:39, kinzyjr said:

 

This is exactly the reason I don't allow anyone to trim anything on my property.  I'd rather do it myself and do it right than lose all of my plants due to laziness or negligence.  Our city is losing CIDP's and large phoenix dactyliferas at an exponential rate due to exactly this.  It's a shame.  Sorry to @tstex, @PalmatierMeg, and others who are losing palms to this horrible disease.

And lets not forget the impact of Texas Phoenix Palm Decline in this part of the world.  Between these two scourges, our palm options here in central FL are really limited. One method of transmission we haven't discussed is root grafting.  I don't know if palm roots graft or not, but dicot species certainly do.

[tstex]

I read that F-Wilt is many times transferred by an airborne pathogen.  being tall as these are, and that we have a strong S, SE winds, that's a deadly combination.

we have a 100 acre ranch in NE Colorado County, about 60 miles WNW of Houston.  I did work w a Texas A&M professor on Oak Wilt, which is very prevalent in many places in the State of TX.  Oak wilt is an infectious disease caused by the fungus Ceratocystis fagacearum, which invades and disables the water-conducting system in susceptible trees.  It is spread above ground mainly be the Nitidulid beetle and quite often below ground by root graft, many times 50 ft or more btw oak trees.

We conducted many diff macro-fusion techniques via exposing the roots just below the flare roots. The main ingredient is propiconazole [an antifungal] w water, then under pressure via drilling holes into the exposed roots, you inject the tree.  The uptake is quicker than you think, but I used to run 500-1000 ft of hoses w sprinkler near the drip lines and the uptake was much faster w the tree taking in the H2O as well.  You can never cure oak wilt, but by injecting the tree, it kills the pathogen in the upper vascular system to allow continued water absorption.  if the tree has oak wilt, you get a veinal necrosis in the leaves, what looks like a dried/brown fish-bone pattern in the center of the leaves.  I actually rented a 5-6ft trenching machine and cut potential grafting roots in the center middle of live oak groves/clusters...about 2-3 miles worth of trenching over week.- back filling was fun too.

I know this is a palm forum, but here's the live oaks by the house I was trying to prevent from getting oak wilt.  Unfortunately most of the root mass of palms are very small structures that you cannot infuse.  However, if one could mix propiconazole w H2O and the palm could uptake the mixture, maybe this could help.  However, once a palm contracts f-wilt it may be too late, but maybe not for the nearby susceptible ones...maybe you could proactively treat them to withstand the pathogens invasion by heavily watering w p-zole around the root base.  I would surely consult w a palm expert first that is very versed in vascularity and pathogens.

 

Edited July 26, 2017 by tstex

[PalmatierMeg]

12 hours ago, Sandy Loam said:

I did not know that phoenix dactylifera were also falling victim to fusarium wilt until Kinzyjr mentioned it above.

Everyone seems to think that Fusarium Wilt is spread by unsanitized pruning tools, but I have seen infected palms which have obviously never been pruned.  The commonaliy that I have noticed is that infected palms are often close together or just down the street from each other. If my observations are correct, then this pattern might suggest that the disease spreads either in the soil, is airborne, or is spready by certain insects.

 

I go with that option too. Wilt killed off its victims in my back yard but so far, knock wood, hasn't hit the few remaining Syagrus spp on my garden lot. I've seen dying Washies here & there all over the Cape so wilt must travel via wind or insect vector. Queens in Cape Coral are universally neglected and flirting with death anyway so are harder to diagnosed. CIDPs, totally unsuitable for a FL climate anyway, are also dying of wilt.

[Sandy Loam]

15 hours ago, Keith in SoJax said:

And lets not forget the impact of Texas Phoenix Palm Decline in this part of the world.  Between these two scourges, our palm options here in central FL are really limited. One method of transmission we haven't discussed is root grafting.  I don't know if palm roots graft or not, but dicot species certainly do.

Have the authorities confirmed that Texas Phoenix Palm Decline is very common in Florida?  One of these pathogens is increasingly common, but I am not sure which one it is.  In Florida, there is also ganoderma, which I understand is soil borne in patches.  However, I don't know anything about the three pathogens in question, so I only ask the question: Which is the most prevalent pathogen that seems to be killing so many Washingtonia robusta here?  I don't see nearly as many Canary Island date palms or queen palms dying in my travels around the state.

[foxtail]

Hmm... Beetles, chinch bugs, mole cricket.... HUMANS!!!

 

[Gonzer]

19 hours ago, tstex said:

 

 

Gotta say this: The above photo sure does make me forget (momentarily) all the chaos in the world. Great shot!

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

8 hours ago, Sandy Loam said:

Have the authorities confirmed that Texas Phoenix Palm Decline is very common in Florida?  One of these pathogens is increasingly common, but I am not sure which one it is.  In Florida, there is also ganoderma, which I understand is soil borne in patches.  However, I don't know anything about the three pathogens in question, so I only ask the question: Which is the most prevalent pathogen that seems to be killing so many Washingtonia robusta here?  I don't see nearly as many Canary Island date palms or queen palms dying in my travels around the state.

Fusarium is killing washes.

TPPD confirmed & spreading quickly: Absolutely!  Here are two IFAS pubs on the TPPD subject.  

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pp163

http://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/hardeeco/2017/04/26/what-is-happening-to-our-palm/

The fusarium wilt killing washes and queens is also a fairly new thing.  It used to be a CIDP disease but has somehow morphed to kill both washes and queens.  Here's a pub on that.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pp278

I'm planting mostly Cycads these days.  Our palmscape is going to be heavy on Livistonas since they don't seem to have too many diseases yet.  The damn palmetto weevils will get them though.  If it wasn't for the occasional night between 20 and 25F, we could use Royals more.  Most of the exotic species that don't seem to be bothered by these diseases are too cold sensitive, or don't do well on the Lake Wales Ridge (essentially sand with no nutrient or water holding capacity)

 

[Sandy Loam]

Interesting, the publication which you just posted on TPPD (Texas Phoenix Palm Decline) says that the following palms have been affected in Florida.  I quote: 

 

"Currently, the known susceptible hosts for the TPPD phytoplasma are P. canariensis, P.dactylifera, P. sylvestris, P. reclinata, Sabal palmetto, and Syagrus romanzoffiana (queen palm). Only a few queen palms have been confirmed with this disease, whereas the disease has been observed widely among Phoenix species and Sabal palmetto. The TPPD phytoplasma has also been detected in P. roebelenii and xButiagrus nabonnandii, but only once for each species."

 

There are lot of newly killed Sabal Palmetto in patchs around the state. I suppose that must be due to TPPD(?)

[Sandy Loam]

So, basically, we can no longer plant Sabal Palmetto, ANY phoenix, mule palms and queen palms. 

Also, the publication on Ganoderma (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/m/#publication?id=PP100) says that ANY palm is susceptible to Ganoderma and the infection cannot be confirmed until a conk begins to appears somewhere on the lower trunk.  It also says that, because the ganoderma will continue to exist in the roots (and possibly even the surrounding soil), when you remove an infected palm tree, you also need to do stump grinding. That process goes down fairly deep but will not remove all roots.  A stump grinder also sprays the chipped wood from the trunk base all over the whole area, so I am not sure that I would follow the advice given on that point.

In any event, this is all news of great concern.

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

35 minutes ago, Sandy Loam said:

Interesting, the publication which you just posted on TPPD (Texas Phoenix Palm Decline) says that the following palms have been affected in Florida.  I quote: 

 

"Currently, the known susceptible hosts for the TPPD phytoplasma are P. canariensis, P.dactylifera, P. sylvestris, P. reclinata, Sabal palmetto, and Syagrus romanzoffiana (queen palm). Only a few queen palms have been confirmed with this disease, whereas the disease has been observed widely among Phoenix species and Sabal palmetto. The TPPD phytoplasma has also been detected in P. roebelenii and xButiagrus nabonnandii, but only once for each species."

 

There are lot of newly killed Sabal Palmetto in patchs around the state. I suppose that must be due to TPPD(?)

I suspect many of the dead palmettos have been killed by TPPD.  But their ole nemesis, Ganoderma, gets its share too.  

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

20 minutes ago, Sandy Loam said:

So, basically, we can no longer plant Sabal Palmetto, ANY phoenix, mule palms and queen palms. 

Also, the publication on Ganoderma (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/m/#publication?id=PP100) says that ANY palm is susceptible to Ganoderma and the infection cannot be confirmed until a conk begins to appears somewhere on the lower trunk.  It also says that, because the ganoderma will continue to exist in the roots (and possibly even the surrounding soil), when you remove an infected palm tree, you also need to do stump grinding. That process goes down fairly deep but will not remove all roots.  A stump grinder also sprays the chipped wood from the trunk base all over the whole area, so I am not sure that I would follow the advice given on that point.

In any event, this is all news of great concern.

"So, basically, we can no longer plant Sabal Palmetto, ANY phoenix, mule palms and queen palms."  Thats why I'm moving to Cycads, bamboo, and palms that are resistant (e.g. Livistona) to both TPPD and Fusarium wilt.  I can live with the Ganoderma threat, I think.  There aren't many palms near me so I don't have a bunch of inoculum right in my neighbors yard.  I guess thats a good thing.  But if Fusarium hits us, we've got a lot of palms trunks to remove.  I've underplanted queens and robustas with Livistona decora (mostly) as well as australis, saribus, and a few of the others that are only available as small plants.  All of the Livistonas screamed at the drought last winter, but we listened and watered so we didn't lose any.  These plagues just suck the enthusiasm right out of my palm hobby.  In zone 10, there are many options.  In zone 9, not so much.

[Sandy Loam]

So true. It's crownshaft city down in zone 10 --- and when you get down into zone 11 in Miami Beach and 11b in the Keys, the sky's the limit. Literally, those people can plant just about anything and will never have to worry about infections other than ganoderma for their palm gardens. I don't even know whether ganoderma would thrive at all much in their rocky soil down in that part of the state. Others would know.

Unrelated --- Which Cycads do you find are working well for you in your region and growing quickly?  Which bamboos?

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

Sandy Loam, I missed your question about Cycads and Bamboo.  Maybe all these months later you will still see it.

Cycads:  

The genus Cycas is doing pretty well;  panzhihuaensis, revoluta, a hybrid for which I've lost a tag, and a big ole pectinata (I think).  One does have to fight with the scale though, but its manageable.  I have had zero luck with deabaoensis, however.  Thats s pity too because its a gorgeous species. I am very pleased with a plant sold as either calcicola or a very close relative.  Its also gorgeous and very tropical looking.  No damage this winter at all. 

Encephalartos ferox has been a great performer too, though one in the open scorched with frost.  E whitelockii is promising, surprisingly it didn't complain about our cold lows this past winter, it was 25-27 here.  I may have to plant some more of those.  

Macrozamia communis has been pretty good, though I'm having trouble with Johnsonii and lucida.  I had better luck in the mucky soil up in Jacksonville with M moorei which I don't understand.  Down here in Winter Haven it's just not thriving.  I think they like better soil and more even water.  It was good to 20f in Jax.  

All Ceratozamia (robusta, hildae, kuesteriana, Stantiago Tuxtilis) are also doing well, as are Dioons (except for spinulosum which isn't cold hardy enough here).  I have increased the number of both genera over the last year.  

Zamia floridana, and all of its variants are doing extremely well as we have seedlings coming up around the property...which is really cool.  I haven't tried any of the tropical Zamia since our environment is completely wrong; dry, with huge temperature extremes and little shade.  Even the Zamias from the Caribbean are doing alright, and they get big like the Palatka Giant coonties.  

Bamboo:

Undoubtedly the best performing bamboo in our dry, water repellant sand is Bambusa pervariabilis viridistriata.  It's fast, and hasn't complained about anything mother nature has thrown its way, freezes, droughts (& I mean really dry), hurricanes...it just keeps growing.  Oddly some of the bamboo growers say this one hasn't performed very well for their customers so they've dropped it.  I wonder if it prefers our crappy sand and no irrigation?  Anyway, I'm glad we have some.  

We also have Bambusa textilis Kanapaha (I think). Thats done well on a part of the property that holds a little bit of water.  There is another one of the textilis varieties that's done well too though none are in the driest part of the property.  

We have a couple of Indocalamus species, but I only remember the one is called Hamiltonii.  The other was recently moved from the genus Bambusa.  Hamiltonii uprooted in Irma but is still alive since we cut the top off and it fell back into the hole.  Hopefully this isn't a frequent occurrance.  The other one wasn't fazed by Irma at all, even though the culms weren't hardened up when it struck.  I was very impressed.

Bambusa oldhamii is doing okay, but it would like more consistent water.  One large planting is in one of the drier spots on the property and we had to run irrigation to it to prevent it from dying outright.  Two other clumps in a less hostile planting site have done better, but you can tell its not completely happy.  

We do have a couple of Bamboos that are performing poorly.  The worst was Bambusa nana (I think thats right).  Irma killed it dead as a door nail!  All the leave were stripped and the culms turned golden brown in just days.  It was a pretty thing too so we were quite disappointed, and surprised.  Some others like the "Lemon" bamboo just want to be in Hilo, and we' don't have the soil or water to keep them happy.  But they hang on and look okay in the wet season.  We've irrigated them so they don't die in the dry season.  

When you integrate the plants above with the Livistonas, Bismarckia, Serenoa, and Reclinatas, it does give a nice sub-tropical vibe.  Unfortunately, if we lose all of our Washies and Queens, the garden will have some major holes.  Hopefully we won't lose them all.  Beccariophoenx looks to be good here too and that's going to be a nice palm, I think.  Hopefully it doesn't get Fusarium, or TPPD!  FWIW, Mules seem to love the crappy soil, as do Butia...but the Butia are slow and the Mules will get Fusarium too, I think.  We've got a number of Caribbean sabals, (domengensis and causarium) along with mexicana, Bermudana, uresana, minor and etonia.  So far we haven't lost any of those.  We only have 1 S. palmetto (its variegated) and it hasn't died yet.  But we had 2 S. blackburniana and they died of TPPD right away (which makes me think they are really S. palmetto).  Only time will tell how bad these disease epidemics get.  TPPD is passing through our area like a wave right now, much like LY does in So FL.  Maybe it'll move on and not be so prevalent for while.  Thats how LY works and this disease is nearly the same genetically.  

[Palmsbro]

1 hour ago, Keith in SoJax said:

When you integrate the plants above with the Livistonas, Bismarckia, Serenoa, and Reclinatas, it does give a nice sub-tropical vibe.  Unfortunately, if we lose all of our Washies and Queens, the garden will have some major holes.  Hopefully we won't lose them all.  Beccariophoenx looks to be good here too and that's going to be a nice palm, I think.  Hopefully it doesn't get Fusarium, or TPPD!  FWIW, Mules seem to love the crappy soil, as do Butia...but the Butia are slow and the Mules will get Fusarium too, I think.  We've got a number of Caribbean sabals, (domengensis and causarium) along with mexicana, Bermudana, uresana, minor and etonia.  So far we haven't lost any of those.  We only have 1 S. palmetto (its variegated) and it hasn't died yet.  But we had 2 S. blackburniana and they died of TPPD right away (which makes me think they are really S. palmetto).  Only time will tell how bad these disease epidemics get.  TPPD is passing through our area like a wave right now, much like LY does in So FL.  Maybe it'll move on and not be so prevalent for while.  Thats how LY works and this disease is nearly the same genetically.  

TPPD only seems to be finding new hosts. It's acting like the invasive disease it is. 

It's killing of my area's Phoenixes, Washingtonias (for this one, is it fusarium?), and Sabals along with a Syagrus here or there.

The dead/dying ones are in areas with other palms close by, but these are more likely to contract TPPD or fusarium.

Fusarium acts a bit like TPPD, too, making them harder to distinguish (at least in the barium.

As you can probably tell, my outlook on this is pretty bleak.

I wish the best of luck to anyone growing palms in/near infested areas.

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

6 hours ago, Palmsbro said:

TPPD only seems to be finding new hosts. It's acting like the invasive disease it is. 

It's killing of my area's Phoenixes, Washingtonias (for this one, is it fusarium?), and Sabals along with a Syagrus here or there.

The dead/dying ones are in areas with other palms close by, but these are more likely to contract TPPD or fusarium.

Fusarium acts a bit like TPPD, too, making them harder to distinguish (at least in the barium.

As you can probably tell, my outlook on this is pretty bleak.

I wish the best of luck to anyone growing palms in/near infested areas.

Livistonas are your friend, and so are Copernicia alba.  BeccarioPhoenix (damn spell check is terrible with Latin) look to be great palms for zone 9.  Don’t give up, just adjust.  FWIW, Sabal mexicana seems resistant to TPPD.  ITS thriving In the Rio Grande valley where TPPD is just horrible.  

 

[Sandy Loam]

I just saw this article summary online (2017):

https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/full/10.1094/PDIS-08-16-1099-PDN

It discusses the new scientific evidence of Fusarium speading to the mule palm, a fourth affected species.