Sabal palmetto green frond fell off

[NickJames]

I had a fully green sabal palmetto frond fall off today. They’ve all been in the ground now about 13 months. Does it look like a problem? It’s unclear which one it came from. They’re all fruiting and otherwise look very healthy?

[PalmatierMeg]

Have you had any strong winds lately? Petiole looks like it has been broken with force. Palms such as native Sabals have breakaway fronds that release during storms to reduce stress on the whole palm during powerful storms. I lost some fronds to TS Sally this past Monday.

[NickJames]

1 hour ago, PalmatierMeg said:

Have you had any strong winds lately? Petiole looks like it has been broken with force. Palms such as native Sabals have breakaway fronds that release during storms to reduce stress on the whole palm during powerful storms. I lost some fronds to TS Sally this past Monday.

We did get squalls from Sally since I was in onshore flow when it was to the south. Maybe that’s it!? The anemometer is located beneath the right cluster of sabals and clocked about 30mph. It does look broken by force, doesn’t it?! I just hate to lose one because I want them to look full! I did notice a squirrel for the first time on my property eating the seeds on them. 

[JLM]

One of my queens did that just randomly. I havent been able to determine the cause. No frond loss from Sally, but they did get the hell beat out of them. One of them nearly uprooted.

[NickJames]

2 hours ago, JLM said:

One of my queens did that just randomly. I havent been able to determine the cause. No frond loss from Sally, but they did get the hell beat out of them. One of them nearly uprooted.

Oh no! I remember as a child, one of my mother’s queens fell into our pool during a tornado. It was only planted about a year. It has now been planted 22 years and looks incredible! So, hopefully yours will bounce back!

[JLM]

2 minutes ago, NickJames said:

Oh no! I remember as a child, one of my mother’s queens fell into our pool during a tornado. It was only planted about a year. It has now been planted 22 years and looks incredible! So, hopefully yours will bounce back!

I hope it does too! The largest queen took the most damage and is now bent over, spear still pushing out though. Happy to see that they are still trucking. Although the one that nearly got uprooted hasnt really done anything, likely going into shock or something.

[sonoranfans]

30mph seems low wind velocity to snap a branch, but it may having been weakened from another earlier wind event.  Might be all the rain has weakened the petioles.  Feels like we have had 20" rain the last few weeks, sometimes coming down very hard, hard enough to wake me up in the middle of the night.  Right now its hard to imagine that everything in my yard is NOT overwatered.