Scarred gnarly looking palm trunks in South Texas

[FiliferaFeral]

Long time stalker first time poster, hopefully im not breaking any forum rules.

Noticed about 50% of the palms here in San Antonio Texas have scarred looking trunks like the pictures ive attached. Cant find a solid answer about whats going on and how to prevent it. It doesn't quite look like trunk rot but i might be mistaken. We have pretty clay heavy soil here so could wet feet be the issue? Seems to be mostly a problem with washingtonia filifera (probably more than 50% of them) but ive seen it a lot on robusta and occasionally on date palms (although there aren't many date palms here to sample).

thank you!

[FiliferaFeral]

Forgot to mention but I haven't seen it at all on sabal palms, almost always washingtonia

[ChrisA]

These are very old filifera normally and the damage I believe is caused by the combination of the palms being trimmed by folks using spike boots for many decades and moisture and humidity getting into those wounds and rotting the trunk. 

[FiliferaFeral]

you know now that you've pointed this out ive noticed theres often many spike sized holes in the trees that have it the worst. thanks so much!

[wimmie]

Aren't they a bit skinny for a filifera?

[Las Palmas Norte]

Scarred gnarly

 

Great name for a metal band.