I have a Beaucarnea recurvata aka ponytail palm that's about 8' tall (the wood fence behind it is 6' tall), planted about 2 years ago in very sandy soil and very shallow, may be the depression I dug was 2 inches deep if that.  In full sun, area does get flooded once in a blue moon.

Towards the bottom I noticed a fairly good size hole.

Close up of the hole.

If I insert my finger into the hole it feels that there is more empty space inside.

Is this some kind of a fungus rot?  Is there a remedy?  Do I need to treat it with a fungicide?  Do I need to do anything about the hole?

1 hour ago, miamicuse said:

I have a Beaucarnea recurvata aka ponytail palm that's about 8' tall (the wood fence behind it is 6' tall), planted about 2 years ago in very sandy soil and very shallow, may be the depression I dug was 2 inches deep if that.  In full sun, area does get flooded once in a blue moon.

Towards the bottom I noticed a fairly good size hole.

Close up of the hole.

If I insert my finger into the hole it feels that there is more empty space inside.

Is this some kind of a fungus rot?  Is there a remedy?  Do I need to treat it with a fungicide?  Do I need to do anything about the hole?

Other than being sure the trunk doesn't get submerged, absolutely nothing you can do about it.. Interior tissue of these is a spongy material that can readily decompose if it stays too wet.  applying a fungicide won't do squat. Sealing a hole could actually make things worse by sealing in moisture and bacteria / fungal spores that have already entered the wound. ..which will cause more tissue to rot..

 

 

OK so nothing to do except to keep an eye on it.  Will the entire bottom rot out?  There is nothing I can do about the flooding because the entire property is too close to the water.  In April 2023 we got hit with a 1000 year storm and it dropped 26" of rain in 6 hours in Fort Lauderdale, the airport runway flooded over and cars floated away.  My property had 18-20" of water above grade when the river filled up and covered all the streets.  Everything everywhere was flooded and this plant was submerged in 18" of water for close to 24 hours.  It was OK then but now a year later this hole formed.

2 hours ago, miamicuse said:

OK so nothing to do except to keep an eye on it.  Will the entire bottom rot out?

As long as it doesn't get drowned again / repeatedly it should be ok..  Might check the entire circumference of it's base every so often for new soft spots though.

Might not let it get too tall, just in case there is a larger area of the inside of the trunk that has rotted.  Outer layer of living tissue is typically pretty sturdy, but probably less so if top heavy and exposed to tropical storms / hurricanes..



 

21 minutes ago, Silas_Sancona said:

As long as it doesn't get drowned again / repeatedly it should be ok..  Might check the entire circumference of it's base every so often for new soft spots though.

Might not let it get too tall, just in case there is a larger area of the inside of the trunk that has rotted.  Outer layer of living tissue is typically pretty sturdy, but probably less so if top heavy and exposed to tropical storms / hurricanes..



 

The good thing about these are they are easy to start from cuttings ....If say the bottom completely  rotted ( ..it shouldn't ) and you cut the top off and stuck it in the ground..

There are also pictures of a pony tail that had rotted all the way through it's base ..where the owner chopped it almost to the ground.

Instead of giving up, what remained of the plant produced a healthy crop of new sprouts.

I have a ponytail with a similar problem.  About 3 years ago I had the last batch of oaks cut down in the back yard.  One of the chunks of trunk they dropped bounced and hit the base.  This took a big chunk out of it:

I chucked a bunch of sulfur powder in there on a semi-regular basis, and eventually it formed a new solid "trunk skin" underneath about an inch or so of the spongy stuff.  I think it took at least a year to form that "skin."  I'm not really sure, because one day I walked past and noticed some of the spongy stuff had fallen off the side.  So I carefully poked around and found the hard surface.  I peeled off the remaining dead spongy stuff and here's what it looks like today:

12 hours ago, Merlyn said:

I have a ponytail with a similar problem.  About 3 years ago I had the last batch of oaks cut down in the back yard.  One of the chunks of trunk they dropped bounced and hit the base.  This took a big chunk out of it:

I chucked a bunch of sulfur powder in there on a semi-regular basis, and eventually it formed a new solid "trunk skin" underneath about an inch or so of the spongy stuff.  I think it took at least a year to form that "skin."  I'm not really sure, because one day I walked past and noticed some of the spongy stuff had fallen off the side.  So I carefully poked around and found the hard surface.  I peeled off the remaining dead spongy stuff and here's what it looks like today:

This looks similar to the wound on mine, except I don't think mine was caused by trauma, possible I suppose.

I took the end of a drill bit and inserted into the hole and it went in only about an inch and the inside is hard and solid, not spongy.  I hope that is a good sign.

@miamicuse it looks like that hole has been there for a long time, especially if it's already formed a hard surface inside.  I'd say don't mess with it, and it will probably be okay.  Maybe a small car floated by in the storm and hit the trunk? 

@Merlyn this is planted on the inside of my fence so not a car, but during the flood when water was real high, some of my planting borders made out of 4X4s pinned down with rebars got pushed out and floated from one end of my property to the other fifty feet away.  So it is possible it was bumped into by something I guess.  I don't know how long the hole has been there I just noticed it recently.

On 4/28/2024 at 5:50 PM, miamicuse said:

This looks similar to the wound on mine, except I don't think mine was caused by trauma, possible I suppose.

I took the end of a drill bit and inserted into the hole and it went in only about an inch and the inside is hard and solid, not spongy.  I hope that is a good sign.

Possible the injury was small enough that it healed itself over before any more damage could occur.  Definitely don't recommend poking around though, lol.