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Sago Palm Problem

15 years ago

I purchased a young 10 frond Sago this past Saturday. I have it outside on my patio and it gets about 2 hours of direct sunlight where it sits now. I have watered it and gave it a little palm fertilizer but on 2 of the fronds a few of the leaflets have turned brown and yellow. On some of the other fronds a few of the leaflets are starting to curl down like there coiling themselves up. A few other leaflets are starting to point slightly upwards and a few others are now pushing back resting on the leaflet next to it. It looked great and healthy on Saturday. Anyone have any ideas about whats going on here and how I can cure this?

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Comments (9)

alex_7b
15 years ago
It may not have been in direct sun before.
tey157
15 years ago
Got a picture?
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Thanks for the responses folks. I do fertilize, but I usually throw palm fertilizer on it, which might not be the best I suppose. The growth from previous years is fine though. Will treat it and see how we do. It was a little sprout when we bought it, so sad to see the new growth die off! Also thanks for the link to the video, it does have a touch of what I guess is scale, but I will have to take a better look at photos to see if it's what I have here. I sent a photo to our extension agent, haven't heard back yet, but I know scale is a big problem here. Thanks again all!
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You have two totally different types of seeds because one is a palm and one is a cycad. If I had to guess, I'd say it is too late for both types. I can't tell the difference in palm seeds on viability, but I can tell about cycads. Since the seeds have not been kept moist or protected in any way, I'd just give them the float test. Throw them in a bucket of water and see if any float, which most likely, all or most all of them will. You have a chance with any that sink. If you have a lot of the sago seeds, you can cut one in half, along the natural seems of the seed and look to see how bad off they are. If you have lots of them, cutting a couple gives you a real good idea of what you are dealing with.
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Those "worms" are catepillars, the larvae of beetles. There's a possibility they chewed into the plant and started off the rotting. But it's also possible they might have just got in to a damaged/rotted part of the plant and kept burrowing inside. Don't know which way around it was. It's an unusual problem, I haven't heard of it happening before. Maybe someone else here has experienced it.
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Okay well thanks everyone for your help! I am already using CFL plant light bulbs and it still stretches. But I'll try and put one closer to the "flush" and pull it back as it grows out. And I can't overwinter anything in my garage - it gets too cold up here. Besides, now that the flush started, it's too late. I have so may tropicals in my house up here in NYS and this is the only one that gives me this problem. As a matter of fact, right now I have a bird of paradise that is blooming, a prickly pear cactus that is growing new petals, a pineapple plant that is growing an actual pineapple, and for the first year ever my papaya tree is budding and I'm excited to see what happens there. All my other plants (grapefruit tree, various palms, passion fruit, dragon fruit, yucca trees, other pineapples and banana trees) aren't growing fruit or budding, but they are quite healthy! I've also had my aloe bloom before too. So the CFL lights are working. They should - I have 16 of them and two fluorescent plant light tubes that come on every day by a timer. Thanks again.
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gary30mazak
Original Author
15 years ago
Sorry no picture. But today I moved it into the shade and now it looks like the fronds are starting to fold up into a v shape. Could this mean its getting ready to throw some new fronds? This plant is weird.
gary30mazak
Original Author
15 years ago
Is there a way to post a picture in a followup post?
david_
15 years ago
I don't think sun will hurt these much its probably a nutritional thing.Find a fertilizer with micro elements especially manganese.Sago is a cycad not a palm so you can search sites that have info on cycads if you like. cycad jungle has some good articles to check out.
florida_wannabe
15 years ago
It definatly WILL hurt these to have it in direct Sun if it has been inside all Winter.
It's not a nutrient problem as it was doing great in the place he/she bought it from.
It's sunburned.
david_
15 years ago
Maybe it was not watered for a long time and then sold ? Maybe that is the problem ? There can be other reasons why this could be happening.Maybe its sunburned but without a pic that description is not good enough to make a "absolute" opinion for me.
cycadjungle
15 years ago
This is a very strange description. Growing something like this for a week, no matter what light, or water, or anything will do this. So what are the possibilities? We can only speculate. First, if you have individual leaflets that are bent and turning brown that is the first key to some sort of mechanical damage of some sort. Seeing leaflets that were straight a few days ago and now are bent one way or the other also sounds like something weird along the same lines. You could have done something when you brought it home and now it is showing up. Maybe a bird is landing on your plant when your not looking. Maybe a cat or other small animal is doing something. I know these possibilities sound strange, but over the years, I have had people ask this same basic question and they found out later, it was one of these things. Either way, if this is all the problem you are having with the plant, it is very minor. A new flush of leaves will come out sometime and you can cut these older leaves off if you think they look unsightly.
gary30mazak
Original Author
15 years ago
I have a picture of the most damaged frond posted in the image gallery test forum. Its in the post called movie.

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