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Jubaea x Syagrus Showing Variegation


Mauna Kea Cloudforest

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Since I've had only one reply in the main forum, I thought I'd give it a go here. What the heck is happening to this jubaea x syagrus ? Seems like it's going variegated. Why would this be happening? Could this be a nutritional deficiency? There are no bugs on the plant. so it rules out pests. Since the variegation showed up I decided to remove this palm from my cold frame and let it grow outside where it has more favorable conditions for a jubaea, i.e. cooler.

What do you think?

20140627_181800_zps0zdbynuh.jpg

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Everyone waiting to see what the next leaf does prior to comment. ...lol

David Simms zone 9a on Highway 30a

200 steps from the Gulf in NW Florida

30 ft. elevation and sandy soil

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It looks unhealthy to me. I am going to wait and see if taking it out of the greenhouse and less water will help.

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Mine went through an ugly duckling phase and is just starting to look good 4 years after being planted in ground.

-Krishna

Kailua, Oahu HI. Near the beach but dry!

Still have a garden in Zone 9a Inland North Central Florida (Ocala)

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A first reply from me is that I agree with Axel. It was to hot inthere for the rootsystem of this palm. And as far as I have understood up to now by the cocoid hybrids mother is the sp which determines to greater extent behaviour of hybrid (which is rather the contrary to what happens on Phoenix hybrids). And Jubaea really hates scorched or boiled feet. If theory is correct next leaf will be again absolutely normal.

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That's a good point. The cold frame is 90-100F every day, it's where I push growth for sabal, livistona, brahea and bismarckia. That might explain the nutritional deficiency. Perhaps it's not the most conducive environment for jubaea offsprings.

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I had the same with mine, It was four years ago, do not remember exactly what is was but it grew over it without a problem.

Regards Matthijs

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it's already perking up after being out of the greenhouse for a couple of days. Pretty sure Constantinos is right, it must be quite intolerant of hot roots. The soil is now cold outside as is usual from the 55F nights. I had the same problem with a jubaeopsis caffra. I had to pull it from the greenhouse, that seems to be another hot soil intolerant species.

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In the bigger picture of the importance of soil temps, im not sure about the absolute relevance of soil temps for growth of palms.

Over time, I did two experiments on my syagrus:

first was giving it ample warm tapwater (around 28C) for a few days, the soiltemps was raised, there was no accelaration of speed (i marked the spear)

Second i wrapped the trunk in heating cables with plastic, the soil was not covered, it responded withing 24 hrs and speeding up in the following day/nights.

in my opinion, the raising air temps are picked up by the meristeem/trunk tissue and they start the process (e.g. activate the roots).

Warm soil will probably add something to the actual growth per 24 hrs, but the process is not the other way around, meaning that palms start growing as a result of warm soil alone. My syagrus grows more than half an inch per night, trunk wrapped in cables, while the soil is uncovered and near freezing in winter.

In short, palms generally grow more slowly in area's which have cool nights. The cool night in my opinion mainly disrupts the proces in the trunktissue/meristeem (not the rootactivity).

High daytemps cant correct that, neither can raising soiltemps alone.

Edited by Axel Amsterdam
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Your observations about root temps don't jive with what we observe in California. Queens sometimes go chlorotic in the Winter here as a result of warm daytime temperatures and cool soils. They continue to grow but don't get adequate nutrition from the soil.

The statement that "palms generally grow more slowly in area's which have cool nights" is also incorrect. It's a function of species. Some species grow better with cooler nights, they expect it. Many plants actually react favorably to a good diurnal temperature shift. Parajubaea, brahea ceroxylon and rhopies grow better with cooler nights.

However, there are lots of palms that do grow better with warmer nights, syagrus is one of them. Then there are very tropical palms that really are set back by cool nights. Copernicia are slow as molasses in California because night time temperatures are too low. In Southern California they get three or four months of warm nights, but the rest of the year they slow down.

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The uptake of nutrients has nothing to do with the growth speed as you noticed. Queens go really fast in alkaline soils in florida. Nutrients dont make them grow faster imo, just more balanced and healthier overall. My queen is completely yellow after winter but regaines it's green once temps warm up, it doesnt need a feed to do that. The fact that soiltemps are not what makes a queen grows fast is tested by me. Once you do the experiment you will see. Putting palms in a greenhouse will give you no specific information because you raise soiltemps, airtemps and humidity at the same time.

I agree with some palms doing nicely with cool nights although it's really not so straigtforward. There are some rhopies in southern Cali which look better than in habitat imo. Ofcourse inland Cali heat is too much, but it's not that they need to be planted in those 10C nights area's. They cope well with warmer San Diego style nights and look healthy or am i mistaken.

The fact that they tolerate relatively cool nights is not the same as absolutely loving it, im sure they do great with 15C nighttemps.

Also brahea (edulis for example) does fine in cool nighttemps but especially armata is much faster in dry hot night climates.

I dont know anything about more tropical palms.

Edited by Axel Amsterdam
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Axel in Amsterdam, I am pretty sure that Brahea Axel by contrasting cool to warm nights does not have in mind the 15 C threshold. I think that 15 C and 16 and 17 ... up to 22 C approx. is still considered cool night-temperature. And ... yes, both Parajubaea and Ceroxylon with such warm night-temps do not feel well.

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The uptake of nutrients has nothing to do with the growth speed as you noticed. Queens go really fast in alkaline soils in florida. Nutrients dont make them grow faster imo, just more balanced and healthier overall. My queen is completely yellow after winter but regaines it's green once temps warm up, it doesnt need a feed to do that. The fact that soiltemps are not what makes a queen grows fast is tested by me. Once you do the experiment you will see. Putting palms in a greenhouse will give you no specific information because you raise soiltemps, airtemps and humidity at the same time.

I agree with some palms doing nicely with cool nights although it's really not so straigtforward. There are some rhopies in southern Cali which look better than in habitat imo. Ofcourse inland Cali heat is too much, but it's not that they need to be planted in those 10C nights area's. They cope well with warmer San Diego style nights and look healthy or am i mistaken.

The fact that they tolerate relatively cool nights is not the same as absolutely loving it, im sure they do great with 15C nighttemps.

Also brahea (edulis for example) does fine in cool nighttemps but especially armata is much faster in dry hot night climates.

I dont know anything about more tropical palms.

You're over-simplifying something that is far more complex. Rhopies look good in San Diego because San Diego is generally cool. Even Hawaii is on the cool side and rhopies will grow well above about 1500 feet there because at 1500 feet the temperature at night is usually in the low 60's - same as San Diego during the Summer. Rhopies are considerably slower in Florida where night time temperatures are elevated.

The ideal diurnal temperature shift is a function of species. Highland and cool oceanic species require the nightly cool down below about 18C at night. But all plants do better with a diurnal temperature swing. Look up "Thermoperiod" and you will learn about the 10-15F minimum diurnal temperature difference that maximises plant growth for most species of plants. My rhopies put on the most growth when I have days in the 90's and nights in the low 50's. There is often up to three inches of white on the spear on days like that.

The actual ideal growing temperature range is different for different plants. In the case of copernicia, the 10-15F temperature swing needs to shift to a higher range. For copernicia, they do best with daytimes in the 90's and night times at about 77C and above. Hence they grow fast in Thailand and Southern Florida but slow down in Coastal Southern California and are too slow in Coastal Northern California to be viable. However, they thrive in the inland empire, and the Mediterranean copernicia species grow well in inland Northern California where nights are still cool but days feature a lot more adequate heat hours.

For the longest time I was afraid my cool nights would prevent me from growing bismarckia. But as it turns out, the biggest growth factor is the number of heating hours during the day. I had growth on my bismarckia in the Winter months when lows where in the 40's and highs were in the 70's to low 80's during the day. I even had an entire new leaf open up in December and another one in early February. Growth shut down during Winter rainy periods when lows were in the mid 50's and highs were in the upper 50's to low 60's. So warmer nights but cooler days resulted in less growth.

Your statement about brahea armata is also not accurate. Brahea armata thrives in desert climates where it's hot during the day and cool at night, that is exactly what they experience in Baja, where cold upwelling off the coast makes the desert cool off significantly even at the height of Summer. Brahea armata growth is primarily a function of hot daytime temps. Actually, the cooler night time temps will greatly accelerate growth on an armata provided it's hot and sunny during the day. You could have picked brahea dulcis, this is one that does in fact do well with warm nights. Brahea bella, a variant of dulcis is quite popular in Florida.

As for the soil temperature, I just don't agree that your observation for a queen palm translates to a universal truth for all palms. Queens are root hardy, and you would have to freeze the soil to shut down the roots. Of course warmer soil temps are going to have less impact on the growth rate than air temperature. Your queens go yellow because at your latitude, the nutrient uptake is almost nil at those temperatures. But for other palms the ideal soil temp is much higher and there is a significant difference. I have sections of my garden that are perpendicular to the afternoon sun in the Summer, and soil temperatures reach the 80's there, but it's also the most exposed to the sea breeze. Tropical palms growing in that section of the garden outgrow the same species where the sun angle is less optimal and soil temps are cooler but air temps are hotter.

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post-97-0-18877600-1404402717_thumb.jpg

Axel VS. MechaAxel

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David Simms zone 9a on Highway 30a

200 steps from the Gulf in NW Florida

30 ft. elevation and sandy soil

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Ok, thanks, i will leave it, its getting complicated.

cheers,

Axel

I thought this is an interesting topic to discuss. Your observations are very valuable, I was just challenging your conclusions and providing some data points as to why your conclusions might be off a little. I think it's worth posting a new thread on this.

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Ok, thanks, i will leave it, its getting complicated.

cheers,

Axel

I thought this is an interesting topic to discuss. Your observations are very valuable, I was just challenging your conclusions and providing some data points as to why your conclusions might be off a little. I think it's worth posting a new thread on this.

It's just that im not into the models and the charts and the habitat comparisons. That's too large for me. I do small experiments or observe some interesting points and take it from there (bottom up :mrlooney: ).

For example, im not the only one that found out that warm water doesnt speed up temperate palms. The UK is a good place to try because of the lack of warmth during daytime. So the effect can be observed easily without interference of high daytime highs like your climate has. Thats why i said that generally i dont believe in the benefits of warm soil for speedy growth. It doesnt work if you try it without other beneficial factors.

If you observe that palms grow much better in the location of your property with higher soil temps, its not sure that this is because of warmer roots.

You might actually be looking at higher air nighttemps close to the soil, because the warm soil at night benefits the trunk area of small palms and most of your palms on the pictures i have seen seem to have small trunks. It will be more interesting to see if this works on species with larger trunks.

But then again, large palms can and will react differently than smaller palms. So a palm that was slow for the first 5 years and seem to have been planted in the wrong climate can speed up considerably after some point. I know of 2 large syagrus that grow in Eureka that gained a lot of trunk in just a few years. Did they start out like that in the first years in a climate that never sees more than 20C? probably not. So conclusions on small palms are very limited in my opinion.

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Ok, thanks, i will leave it, its getting complicated.

cheers,

Axel

I thought this is an interesting topic to discuss. Your observations are very valuable, I was just challenging your conclusions and providing some data points as to why your conclusions might be off a little. I think it's worth posting a new thread on this.

It's just that im not into the models and the charts and the habitat comparisons. That's too large for me. I do small experiments or observe some interesting points and take it from there (bottom up :mrlooney: ).

For example, im not the only one that found out that warm water doesnt speed up temperate palms. The UK is a good place to try because of the lack of warmth during daytime. So the effect can be observed easily without interference of high daytime highs like your climate has. Thats why i said that generally i dont believe in the benefits of warm soil for speedy growth. It doesnt work if you try it without other beneficial factors.

If you observe that palms grow much better in the location of your property with higher soil temps, its not sure that this is because of warmer roots.

You might actually be looking at higher air nighttemps close to the soil, because the warm soil at night benefits the trunk area of small palms and most of your palms on the pictures i have seen seem to have small trunks. It will be more interesting to see if this works on species with larger trunks.

But then again, large palms can and will react differently than smaller palms. So a palm that was slow for the first 5 years and seem to have been planted in the wrong climate can speed up considerably after some point. I know of 2 large syagrus that grow in Eureka that gained a lot of trunk in just a few years. Did they start out like that in the first years in a climate that never sees more than 20C? probably not. So conclusions on small palms are very limited in my opinion.

Syagrus grow incredibly fast even in locations right next to the water in parts of our County where temps rarely get above 68F/20C. La Selva Beach South of here is full of queen palms right by the water, and it's mostly 15-18C every day during the Summer. My experience is that cold soil temperatures in more Northern latitudes is a much bigger limiting factor than air temperatures. This is why many palms thrive in places like San Francisco where the air temp isn't warm but the soil temp in't cold either. My experience is that many sweater palms do well because their roots are adapted to function optimally in a lower temperature range (7C-15C) than tropical palms, which might shut down when soil temps drop below 15C.

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Good point, but i remember you said that syagrus is not an easy grow in your garden. Do you have much colder nights than La Selva beach?

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Good point, but i remember you said that syagrus is not an easy grow in your garden. Do you have much colder nights than La Selva beach?

It's a lot hotter here than La Selva beach. it's not the temperatures, it's my soil. I was trying to grow them at the top of my hillside where the soil quality is poor and the water drains really fast. There are queens all over the neighborhood, a guy three houses down planted a bunch in his front yard, they went from 5 gallons to several feet of trunk in 4 years. I moved a queen that stayed 4 feet tall for 8 years at the top of my hill where it wasn't getting proper water. It's now at the bottom of my garden and took off.

We all have our limiting factors when it comes to growing palms. I bet water isn't an issue in Amsterdam but around here my palms never fail to teach me that temperature is rarely the culprit, it's usually lack of water that keeps my palms from growing properly. I've invested a lot of time and effort this Spring to upgrade my irrigation system, and the results are already showing up. The new drip system is really working well to saturate the root zone. The only issue I've had so far was with a copernicia, it wasn't planted properly so even drip wasn't working.

There are a handful of palms that are struggling with temperature in my garden, Coccothrinax argentata is putting on growth at a snails pace, and beccariophoenix fenestralis has not put on a single leaf so far.

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