Early signs of problems

[MattyB]

I thought it might be useful to have some pics of symptoms that occcur on our plants before they actually died.  Hindsight is 20/20 so let's put that to use.

Here's a D. St. Lucie that I lost to root rot.  At first I thought it had gotten sunburnt after some hot weather.  But what was actually happening was the roots were rotting and the leaves were drying out because the root system was being comprimised.  At this point the dessication at the leaf tips was pretty far along.

Let's see your pictures.

[Matt in SD]

Good idea for a topic Matt,

I don't have any photos right now, but I have made a couple of observations so far.

If a plant stops growing COMPLETELY (i.e. mark the spear and no detectable movement after 1-2 weeks), it's usually already dead.  I have never saved one of these cases.

There is a "look of death" that palm leaves get where they get sort of droopy and lose their shine.  If this happens suddenly, especially on a newer leaves quickly there is a problem.  I think this happens when a leaf suddenly loses it's "circulation" rather than the normal process where the plant reclaims nutrients in the leaf before it dries out (this is why old leaves usually yellow before they turn brown).  In my experience if you see this "look of death" on the oldest leaf first and then it progresses to newer leaves, the palms is DEAD.  If it happens to the emerging spear, pull on the spear every day until it comes out and then pour fungicide in the crown (and proabably also hydrogen peroxide).  Sometime the palm will recover, but sometimes it will sit there literally for years looking exactly the same.

When leaves start dying off quickly starting with the oldest leaf, and moving to the newest, this is usually a sign of a root problem (fungus, gopher etc...).  When the emerging spear dies first it's pretty much always due to crown rot.

And Matt, I have had quite a few palms in my greenhouse get the tip dieback like the palm in your photo.  A Cyphosperma balansae eventually died from it but most others have recovered just fine.  I am still not sure what it is, but your guess of root rot sounds good. Maybe when it's rather mild rot you just get the tips dieing, but when it's catastrophic root rot you get the whole leaf "look of death".

Matt

[MattyB]

Not really early observation but evidence of mites.

[Trópico]

Great topic, thanks~!

This Dypsis lastelliana, the last survivor of two batches of RPS seeds, was getting more water than it could cope with. Also I used a heavy "do not use for containers" Miracle Gro evergreen/palm soil. It was under automatic sprinkler system while I had to travel so I couldn't save the poor thing. I noticed that the leaves were progressively light green from oldest (OK green) to newest (truly white except the rachis(?)). Just before I realized the impending doom, the leaves started drying, starting from the tip of the newest then the whole leaf, then progressively to the older leaves. After it was done with the last leaf, I cut the plant close to the bud and there was still some non-brown tissue. Finally the whole plant died and it turns out it was root suffocation and rot.

I've saved others from the brown tip stage. I noticed that if the plant responds well to whatever measure you take, then the brown tip appears smaller than the rest of the leaf which looks fuller and much greener; otherwise the browning continues to gain from the leaf.

In summary, root rot shows up with loss of water/nutrients in the newer leaves which are more tender than the older, established leaves.

[K_Palm]

For those of you with experience, comment on how you would go about saving the plant if at all possible.

I lost a D. decipiens and apparently to root rot, but I didn't really know how to go about changing its predicament.  I think I just lost an A. purpurea (the leafs just shriveled up and the new spear dried out).  It was shipped to me from Florida bare root so it could have just been the shock but I don't know.

[MattyB]

Karel, I've saved a few palms by, at first sign of trouble, barerooting gently in a bucket of water.  When I saw evidence of root tips turning black and mushy, I clipped them back to the white.  Repotted in a very light, well drained mix and drenched the soil with Daconil.  I saved a D. robusta, D. bejofo & Coccothrinax miraguama, this way.  The thing is that I caught it before I saw any signs of a problem.  I suspected I had my d. robusta in too heavy/wet of a mix so I barerooted it and found the rot mentioned above.  The D. bejofo, coccothrinax and  a few others were also in the same mix and had started rotting too.  So I guess I caught it before early.  They've all since pushed new leaves.

[bgl]

I have a couple of hundred Dypsis decipiens seedlings. They had been in 1G pots for maybe a year or so, and I just potted them all up to 5G pots. I started potting them up because a number of the larger ones were definitely ready for a bigger pot, but I also noticed that many (probably most) of them also had fronds that were turning black, which obviously is not a good thing. As I began to pot them up, I realized the reason: the soilmix was very heavy, and never really drained properly. So when I potted them up I also shook off as much as I could of the old, heavy and wet soil and put them all in a lighter, faster draining mix that included probably at least 50% black cinder. I potted up the first ones in mid November 2006, and they are now putting out new healthy fronds, so I'm sure I did the right thing. Today I potted up the last batch of 20 of these sorry looking little palms (I saved the worst looking for last!). As I moved them from one location to another I found this interesting looking individual. First of all, the "regular" fronds in the pot itself are kind of difficult to spot, because they are all black (which was typical of all these seedlings), with just half a frond still green! BUT, coming out of one of the drainholes is another seedling, that is obviously much healthier. I thought that maybe there was a second seed in the pot, so I split the pot open with a machete, and was surprised to find that this is one and the same palm! First time I've seen this happen.

Karel, not having seen you D. decipiens I can only guess that maybe you had a similar problem: soil too wet and not very well draining. I have had no problems bare-rooting my D. decipiens when I potted them up. Just be gentle when you shake off the soggy soil and then put it in a new pot and carefully add a well draining soil mix.

Bo-Göran