Hurricane Matthew may severely damage your palms and there are steps to take to mitigate the risk of loss and save the palms

Hurricane Matthew will put a pretty solid hit on Florida landscapes and could cause serious damage to your Date palms. Many of you may see that the spear leafs (terminal bud - the centermost fronds) are basically destroyed and hanging out to the sides. You may have been told that such an occurrence means that your Date Palms are dead but that is not necessarily true.

I am no PhD nor do I claim to be an all knowing plant guy but one topic that I am comfortable with is the performance characteristics of Date Palms under a variety of cultural scenarios. My decades of direct field experience with Date palms has taught me a whole lot about them and with that experience under my belt I can say with confidence that even if the Spear leafs are totally destroyed by wind, the odds of survival are far greater then those of loss so long as the palms were well established and healthy before the onset of the weather event.

 The destruction of the spear leaf/terminal bud as a result of wind damage is purely structural in nature; it is not a systemic event and was not the result of any kind of internal functionality issue. This form of damage is external and has not affected the palm’s ability to generate new growth or its root system’s ability to support the growth process. As such, and assuming that your palm(s) were healthy and well rooted at the time of the event, the spear leafs will usually regenerate and the canopy will fully recover provided disease does not establish in the damaged tissue in the aftermath of the storm. The odds of complete regeneration will be significantly enhanced by following a few simple steps. They are:

1. Before the storm, get the Date stalks out of the palms. This is probably the most important thing you can do for your date palms before a storm so if you haven’t already done it and have the ability to do it now, do it!
2. After the storm: you must remove the damaged frond tissue as soon as possible in order to mitigate the risk of disease establishment in that shattered tissue and to reduce the risk of boring weevil attraction to the damaged palm. Disease issues establishing in the damaged tissue are going to be normally non- injurious secondary invaders but they can further weaken the palm(s) making it easier for a primary pathogen to establish causing a serious, systemic problem. Even the centermost fronds need to be cut back if they are damaged and laid over. In that case you will trim off the damaged portion of the spear leafs - terminal bud down to a point just below the damage or to within 6” of the point at which it emerges from the trunk.
3. Once the damaged tissue is gone, perform a soil drench using Cleary’s 3336 or T-Storm combined with Subdue Maxx (Mefenaxum). .
4. Perform a canopy spray and trunk drench using just T-Storm or Cleary’s 3336 Make sure you wet all of the cut tips of the fronds and thoroughly drench the trunk from the top to the bottom.
5. Fertilize the palm(s) with 8/2/12 w/minors (or similar). Go fairly heavy; the palm(s) will be drawing on available nutrients more heavily than normal during regeneration so where as a normal rate would be 3-4 pounds per palm, bump it up to 5 pounds per palm scattering the fertilizer over the entire root zone. The essential \area will be 12” out from the trunk to 36” out and all the way around. .Repeat the app after 90 days and then again after another 90 days.
6. Re-establish a regular wet to dry, wet to dry irrigation cycle as soon as possible. .
7. If your palms were surface inundated by salt water storm surge, turn on the irrigation for a period of approx 4 hours and thoroughly saturate the entire area with fresh water and then go back to your wet to dry cycle.      

The bad news is that the tissue that is damaged is lost. The good news is that previously healthy, well established Date palms should recover fairly rapidly and you should begin to see evidence of that recovery within 30 days. Your Date Palms are probably the toughest palms on your property so follow these directions and you may very well have the opportunity to enjoy them for years & years to come.

If the damage is severe and you are deeply concerned, please call us and we will do our best to schedule a technical inspection to determine a path forward and then service personnel to attend to the palms. The best way to reach us after a storm will be via email to [email protected] or on our cell phones. You can reach Melissa at (561) 436 3132 and she will move everything forward on a case by case basis in accordance with our site operations availability.

This one is going to be memorable so please don’t take this storm lightly; it is looking to be a serious one and you will be thanking yourself after it for anything you did to prepare before it.

Good luck!

 George P. Nottingham

President

Groundworks of Palm Beach County Inc.

www.datepalm.com

[email protected]