Reason for Palm tree death?

Question

Tree's (6) all died within 6 months apart.The heart turned black and soft and they bent over.I have two others right next to them but they were ok.They were Mexican Fan palms and another type that I don;t know the name of.

Answer 1

I am certain that this sounds like Palm crown rot (Thielaviopsis) or a similar/related fungus. If you lived in SoCal and these were Date type palms (Phoenix sp.) then it could be the fusarium fungus that is killing these types of palms here in Southern California. Because you mention these are fan palms (such as your Washingtonia, sabals, etc) - I would bet the problem to be a crown rot problem.

Bad news is you cannot do too much to it - and it often happens just "out of the blue" without warning (the heart rot, etc). My only advice would be that if you had additional palms near the ones which rotted - would be to move them (if they are small enough to move), treat them with a systemic fungicide (such as Immunox - but this would just be precautionary, because I'm not certain it would treat crown rot completely); and also to try to keep the crown/center of the palm dry by not watering "into" the palm's heart.

Good luck.

Answer 2

Honey - sometimes palm trees just die. That's part of life.

But seriously, when did you plant them? Could it be the root ball never expanded or that the dirt wasn't packed around the roots good enough? Air kills roots.
They also need to get a good start with a LOT of water daily.

My only other guess is that your neighbor didn't like them and poisoned them somehow.

Answer 3

If you are in Southern Cal there is some sort of blight that is killing a lot of the palm trees. Check with your local nursery.

Answer 4

They got some contagious disease I would think, Contact a tree surgeon for advice,,

Answer 5

the ground might have been contaminated