More TPPD / LB in Phoenix Dactylifera in Downtown Orlando?

[Merlyn]

In downtown Orlando there's a building at 860 North Orange with about 8-10 large Phoenix Dactylifera.  I was driving past earlier this week and saw that every single one of them had severe canopy collapse, basically right below where they had seeded.  The 4 large ones inside the courtyard had all been recently trimmed, so there's no sign of any sickness.  Pygmy Dates in the same section of the street looked fine, as did other Sylvesters just South along Orange.  I drove in a circle around there and didn't see any other problems.  Strangely enough I did not see any recent nearby plantings, so whatever is killing these must have been brought in by moving insects or dirty pruning equipment.  All of them were at the same stage of collapse, so likely they were all infected at exactly the same time.  Here's the address and some photos:

https://www.google.com/maps/@28.5556849,-81.3791987,3a,75y,267.13h,107.28t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sBbpqKYAuPeeeNVsD3tm8Lw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

It's sad to see these dying, they were some of the palms that inspired me to start growing big "thug palms!"

[PalmatierMeg]

Looks like something along that line. Could it have been brought in by infected pruning tools? The palm in one of your photos looks way over trimmed.

[Merlyn]

8 hours ago, PalmatierMeg said:

Looks like something along that line. Could it have been brought in by infected pruning tools? The palm in one of your photos looks way over trimmed.

I was looking at the fronds in the original photos, it's possible that the disease is something else like Fusarium.  Some of the fronds seem to have one side dead and one side alive, but others look normal.  The weirdest part is that some of the petioles and leaves are perfectly green but the petiole collapsed.  I haven't seen anything like it before.

The first two photos are from the 4 palms inside the courtyard.  They were recently over-pruned to cut off all the drooping fronds, probably in a vain attempt to make them look nice.  I didn't notice any unusual discoloration of the cut bases, though they were pretty far up in the air and tough to see.

[PalmatierMeg]

Certainly could be fursiarum wilt if fronds die first on one side, then on the other. Too bad because wilt is fatal.

Queen leaf showing symptoms of fursiarum wilt

[palmsOrl]

That's a shame.  I guess it's time to plant some royals.

[Merlyn]

So I think I figured out what happened with the Phoenix Dactylifera in the original post.  I've seen a few seeding Phoenix around, but almost never a seeding Dacty.  Sylvestris have a somewhat small "gap" betwen the upper canopy and the seed pods, due to the weight of the pods pushing down the fronds below them.  Pygmy date pods are so small they don't affect the other fronds at all.  But Dacty seed pods are huge and heavy, and they push lower fronds downward quickly without having them die off! 

There are 4 big Dactylifera at the corner of Montgomery Rd. and W Central Parkway in Altamonte Springs.  I ride past them a lot on the bike path, and watched them as they started seeding.  Initially I noticed a gap starting to form around the beginning of August, but didn't take a picture.  Then it became pretty big on 9/15 and I snapped photos every couple of days until Tuesday, when the city had come through and chopped off the seed pods and lower fronds.