Roystonea regia, help? Fronds are bunching up

[Chris WCT]

Hello 

I'm looking for help, I have a friend that has an established Roystonea regia growing here in St Pete. The fronds new and old look to be not extending or benched up at the top of the crown shaft. Any Ideas? 

Thank you for any help 

 

Chris 

[TikiRick]

Photos?!

[Chris WCT]

Image attached 

[Tyrone]

12 hours ago, Chris WCT said:

Image attached 

That looks healthy to me unless I’m missing something.

[James B]

1 hour ago, Tyrone said:

That looks healthy to me unless I’m missing something.

Agreed it looks awesome 

[sonoranfans]

leaves look a little short for our area with that much trunk, but its not a problem.  Sometimes new leaves emergence slows down during the winter and this could happen, but a little palm fertilizer in a month or so and it should be off to the races.   The palm doesnt have much free root area with all that concrete nearby, but it should be fine.

[Johnny Palmseed]

1 hour ago, sonoranfans said:

leaves look a little short for our area with that much trunk, but its not a problem.  Sometimes new leaves emergence slows down during the winter and this could happen, but a little palm fertilizer in a month or so and it should be off to the races.   The palm doesnt have much free root area with all that concrete nearby, but it should be fine.

Totally agree with this. Water and fertilizer and it should be good. Since it’s in a somewhat constricted space, I would use palm fertilizer on the lawn surrounding it. The lawn will not care but the palm will be happy. If it is just getting lawn fertilizer, which is usually only nitrogen, it can develop deficiencies. This could be a manganese deficiency starting. I see many palms planted in this manner which develop problems later in life. They do ok until they get to this size. Then, the lack of K or micros or whatever starts to show. Frequently the palms take a turn and never recover.

Manganese. A lot of people don’t even know what that is.

[sonoranfans]

8 minutes ago, Johnny Palmseed said:

Totally agree with this. Water and fertilizer and it should be good. Since it’s in a somewhat constricted space, I would use palm fertilizer on the lawn surrounding it. The lawn will not care but the palm will be happy. If it is just getting lawn fertilizer, which is usually only nitrogen, it can develop deficiencies. This could be a manganese deficiency starting. I see many palms planted in this manner which develop problems later in life. They do ok until they get to this size. Then, the lack of K or micros or whatever starts to show. Frequently the palms take a turn and never recover.

Manganese. A lot of people don’t even know what that is.

I can agree could a a slight Mn deficiency.  Lawn lime also has the wrong Ca/Mg ratio(too much Ca) and can cause Mg deficiency as they compete for the same cation exchange sites.  Garden lime is closer to dolomite which is what palms really want.

[Charlie Beck]

PalmNutritionalDeficiencyCorrectionAndAntagonisticNutritionalRelationships.pdf (palmbeachpalmcycadsociety.com)

The above link addresses your issue. The article was published in a Palm Beach Palm and Cycad Society newsletter.

Your Royal Palm is suffering from Potassium deficiency. It will continue to decline without nutritional correction.

[Chris WCT]

Thank you for all the advice, great content!