Majesty Palm Help

[Jubaea]

I bought this palm in February looking a bit rough. It had two emerging spears on it at the time and one has now opened. The second is about to open and a third is now visible. The color is yellow with brown patches and burn on the tips of all the leaves. I potted it up in a heavy mixture since I read that these like lots of water. I mixed in Osmocote Plus and Lime when I repotted it. Since then I have given it some Miracle Grow a couple of times.

I'm thinking that it is a nutrient problem either too little or too much of something. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Dylan

[Jubaea]

More pictures

[Jubaea]

Last picture

Edited June 11, 2011 by Jubaea

[stygiana]

Hi Dylan,

Ravenea rivularis is notorious for its nutrient deficiency problems. I'm sure there are already quite a few threads on that subject and I strongly suggest you to have a look.

I am not a specialist, and I hope others will give their own point of view, but I am happy to share my experience with you. First, this is not great but to tell you the truth I gave up with this species because I only want 100 % happy palms, so I know grow his cousin, Ravenea glauca, which is far more tolerant.

But I however succeeded to have good results in other places where I lived with the following methods : First, I used beneficial fungi (like Trichoderma, Rhizopogon,; Scleroderma and Pisolithus). These useful microscopic fungi have many roles : they protect the roots from many cryptogamic diseases, and even more important in the case of R. rivularis, they provide your palm with nutrients it cannot assimilate otherwise. The great adnatage compared to applications of chemical fertilizers is that once the fungi are active, they will stay in the root system as long as your palm is alive. So it's far less expensive and you don't have to bother every so often. Of course, it's better not to allow your soil to dry out completely. Your palm won't like and and you may kill the fungi. Important : Before applying the fungi, I removed all the soil, washed the roots, sprayed them with the fungus and replanted my rivularis in a medium which had a lot of compost made from leaves and grind stems (plus a bit of sand). For my most difficult specimens, I only added once in a while algae fertilizer.

It might not be the best option, I don't know, but it worked well for me.

I forgot : mind your water. If it's got lot's of lime, then it's gonna be a problem. Storing rain water is an alternative to tap water saturated with lime and chlorine.

Edited June 11, 2011 by Sebastian Bano

[Stevetoad]

Epsom salt helps green up mine...

[Tassie_Troy1971]

My small (2ft ) rivularis looks exactly the same and has had every type of fertilizer known !

[Jubaea]

Thanks for the help everyone. I was hoping it would look ok at least for the summer but as time goes on it gets worse and worse. I can try the Epson Salts and see if that helps, if not maybe I will get rid of it and try something else.

Dylan

[pindo]

Dylan

If soil pH is high, possibly Mn deficiency. This will be fixed with the spring-summer (temperature increase) or by applying manganese sulphate

regards

[Jason Baker Portugal]

Dylan,

Try giving it more shade. They seem to grow in a forest climate in habitat.

Jason

[LJG]

Dylan,

Try giving it more shade. They seem to grow in a forest climate in habitat.

Jason

Agreed. It is too young for full SoCal sun.

[Jubaea]

Too much sun could very well be the problem, as I have it in the spot that gets as much sun as possible. I will put it in a spot that gets more shade and see if it improves from there. Thanks for the help.

Dylan

[dalmatiansoap]

Had a same situation some time ago, all solved well by adding a lot of water and decent fert.

[Walt]

Assuming you potted your palms up with a quality potting soil with a pH range say around 6.0, the yellowing, IMO, could be mineral deficiency, too much sun, or a combination of both.

I have three potted majesty palms on my lanai. When I potted them up I top dressed around them with Dynamite Palm and Citrus 9 month slow release fertilizer. But every two weekss I give them a light watering of soluble 20-20-20.

Thus far my majesty palms are green (the sunlight in photos make them appear to have some yellow, but it's decieving). The last photo is of some fronds, taken in shade.

Next spring I will plant these palms in the ground, as they would need potting up a size. I generally grow majesty palms for two years in pots (on my lanai) and then plant them when they get up to some size. One time I left them in pots for a year too long and the palms (three of them) went into what I think was manganese deficiency or boron deficiency (or both). The palms were totally root bound and new fronds were starting to grow out stunted, leaves not opening properly and compressed together, etc. I planted these palms and after about a year they grew out of that condition. In the ground I feed them a palm fertilizer with an analysis of 8-2-12-2.5 (magnesium) w/minors, with some slow release nitrogen and potassium.

[LJG]

They look great Walt.

[colin Peters]

I planted a couple of them for my father in law, about 7 yrs ago and they looked the same for

quite a while, but now they are nice and green w/o much fertilizer and have

about 2 ft dia. trunks at the base. They are also in very hot full sun in the

Honolulu area, which is contrary to all the beautiful ones in shaded Lyon Arbor. I will post

a couple of pics tomorrow

Aloha

Colin

[Jubaea]

Those are some nice looking palms Walt. Thanks for sharing.

I moved mine to shade and checked on the roots. It has a lot of new healthy root growth so at least it looks good underneath. I will give it some more time to recover.

Dylan

[MattyB]

It's yellow from sun. They can take the sun it just takes a while to acclimate.

[sarasota alex]

Regular application of fresh fish blood took care of every nutritional problem my R. rivularis ever had