When will my sago flush?

[Alicehunter2000]

I bought two fairly large king sago's last year (approx 3 ft. of trunk). I cut off all the leaves and dug them out carefully. There was a male and a female. The male began pushing a cone shortly thereafter and the female began producing seeds after the move.

The males cone fell off and it flushed its first post move set of leaves. The female never flushed. It has now been a year. They both had alot off babies around the base that flushed after the move.

I left all the babies on the female through the winter but recently cut them off. All I have is a 3 ft. trunk with no leaves.........will this thing ever flush? How long is normal? The squirrels have been eating at the seeds....they look almost fully formed.

[Neofolis]

Anywhere from once every 2-3 years to 3 or even 4 times per year seems to be within the tolerances of normal.  One thing I have noticed with various members of the Cycas genus is that they seem to sulk after anything happens to them.  That could be change of environment, removal of pups, re-potting, etc.  I know this is true to some extent for most plants, but it seems more obvious with flushing Cycads, that just seem to go dormant for long periods.  They seem to respond well to a lot of fertilizer, so that could possibly kick start it into action.

I seem to recall that you posted previously about these two and that they had been in the same place, somewhat neglected for about 10 years with not a great deal of growth, so it may take a while to change their previous growing habit.

[Kris]

Dear David  

Can i see the stills of the cycas in discusion_Please !

Since iam a cycas fan too...

Love,

Kris  

[junglegalfla]

David,

Keep organicide on hand, it's going to be a constant battle with the scale. I finally gave up and took all my sagos out.

[GREENHAND]

Be patient david they will flush mine allways do. keep them moist and fertlized. once they get that big they are hard to kill, i have never lost one yet and i have 12 sagos male and female. also i have cut them all the way back several times. here in Texas we dont have much of a scale problem with sagos that i know of. good luck!!. ps ,post some picts.

[FRITO]

last march I dug a 17 year old specimen with about 3 ft of trunk also on my king sago. transplanted it and  soon after the pups at the base all flushed since i had chop them all back. at the same time the cycad started producing a female flower and it set seed. the seeds are gone now and the flower is slowing withering away. im a patiently awaiting a flush now

1 year ago

[Alicehunter2000]

Thanks all for your replies. I will try to get a pic tomorrow. Frito.......that's exactly the scenario that I have been going through. Female plant moved to a new location, immediately started setting seed, pups sprouting everywhere. No flush.....its been a year now. I will definately try fertilizing it to see if it will do something. Oh.....and scale doesn't seem to be much of a problem here.......yet.

[cycadjungle]

I would have cut all the seeds off if you didn't have any leaves. Even with the leaves on, holding seeds will drain up to 60% of the starch content out of the stem. You had some offsets that had leaves and those leaves would have given the plant at least some energy and you took those off. So you have a very weak plant that needs a lot of energy to come back. I would fertilize it very well with something like Cycad Special that will force out a new flush.

 As far as the scale goes, it IS very bad in certain locations in Texas. Padre Island has had it bad for a few years and parts of Houston have it bad. Luckily I have cured the Asian scale problem without using pesticides. I have created a mulch that can be used twice a year that kills scales and mealy bugs, and recently, my experiments have found that it made the subject cycas plants immune to predation. I should come out with the article in a few months after I have done all my tests.

[chris.oz]

Hi Tom,

Good to hear from you again.  You were  the Cycad guru on the palm board eh !

I had a similar problem with my 2 Cycas revoluta sitting in stasis for 24 months.   Then one of them flushed 2 leaves at the end of summer.   The other is still sitting there.

I would like to know how to get them going..... so what is in the cycad fert ?

[Alicehunter2000]

Hi Tom............I was wondering where you have been also. Thanks for the advice. I just fertilized with some palm fertilizer yesterday before I read your post. Should I still cut off all the seeds?

[Alicehunter2000]

Tom..........waiting for a response...........I'm scared to do anything without an expert opinion.

[cycadjungle]

Well, if these were seeds that sat on the plant since last year sometime, those seeds were ready to cut off this last Christmas, so I would for sure cut them off, but at this point, they are not straining the plant like they were doing earlier this season. But anyway, yes, cut them off. Also, typically, palm fertilizer is weak in nitrogen, so if you don't get anything in the next month or so, I'd try something stronger to help force out a flush.

[Alicehunter2000]

Thanks, going home to do it now.

[_Keith]

David, did they ever flush?

[Alicehunter2000]

[_Keith]

I thought you would get a kick out of that.