Won't Green Up

[palmislandRandy]

I've had this D. leptocheilos from a 7 gallon. I have several others in different areas around my garden without any problems. This one is growing, but always is yellowish. Last week I tried some Ironite without any results. Something is locking up nutrients & not making it available to this palm. It's planted on a slight mound & on top of a slight grade, so I don't think drainage is an issue. The soil may be the issue as it is the marl that was dredged to make the "lake'. Thanks for any advice.

Randy

[Mandrew968]

It's definitely an iron uptake problem. Do you know what your ph is around that palm(it would be interesting to see if it's higher than the other teddies you say are doing better)? I know it sounds redundant, but a calcareous soil(like what we mainly have in Southern Florida will keep a lot of iron loving palms from being happy: Foxtail, leptocheilos(most madagascar palms). You're not alone--most people's teddies look like yours. For this reason I was warned about puting one in my yard. Tyrone put up a thread about digging pockets around the palm and filling it in with an iron saturated peat mixture. I just graded down around mine, yesterday, about a two foot radius, 4 inches down and sprinkled an 8-4-8 plus micros and laid down pure peat, then put cypress mulch on top of that. Fingers crossed!

[sonoranfans]

I've had this D. leptocheilos from a 7 gallon. I have several others in different areas around my garden without any problems. This one is growing, but always is yellowish. Last week I tried some Ironite without any results. Something is locking up nutrients & not making it available to this palm. It's planted on a slight mound & on top of a slight grade, so I don't think drainage is an issue. The soil may be the issue as it is the marl that was dredged to make the "lake'. Thanks for any advice.

Randy

It could be an iron deficiency and it could be magnesium as well. Add epsom salt and see what happens, epsom salt(magnesium sulfate) will temporarily shift the pH towards acid to make the iron more available if yuou have high soil pH, it will improve the pH least temporarily. You should not add more than one application of epsom salt per year because over doing magnesium can cause potassium deficiency. I would put down 1/3 cup in 2 gallons of water and water it in around the drip line. In the mean time, you might try a foliar application called "spray n grow", it has iron and some other micros that are delivered through the foliage. I have used it on small teddies and beccariophoenix in containers with good success in "greening up". Its not cheap. but it will allow you to get some iron to that palm through the foliage.

[Jerry@TreeZoo]

Knowing how everything else looks good there, I know it is not lack of regular fertilizer. It looks like iron deficiency and maybe potassium deficiency as well. Mag might be deficient but the tell-tale pattern in the leaf is not apparent to me. But when you have one deficiency, you are bound to have many and sometimes the others don't become apparent until you cure the first one. That is why a good shotgun approach works, hit it with everything. Get some free sulfur and apply it to the root zone to temporarily lower the pH. Hampshire iron usually works for Becarrio windows and sulpo-mag for potassium and magnesium. Chelated minors spray works well and some is absorbed by the leaf tissue too.

The problem is that these are all temporary fixes and if you find and fix the problem, you are going to have to keep applying the same remedy, perhaps, forever.

[MattyB]

Randy,

Ironite is gonna take longer than a week. The old growth might green up a little, but mostly the new growth is gonna come out green. Keep applying it lightly, once every 3 weeks or so and by the end of Summer you should see results if it's in fact just a deficiency and not your soil.

[Turtile]

Since the soil is marl, it's probably a pH problem which takes a while to change. I'd try chelated foliar fertilizer for now.

[Davidl]

I would guess its a iron deficiency.