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I looked up the symptoms out of curiosity, and it's localized yellowing of the leaf tissue followed by necrosis. It seems both of my Needle Palms have that; although Tennessee doesn't have them as far as I'm aware, both of them shipped from an affected area last spring, and our winter surely wasn't hard enough to kill them off.
However, I've heard that general pesticides don't work on RPMs. What kind of pesticides do I need to eradicate them and save the one of my palms that's not already seriously wounded (and spray the dying one just so they can't recolonize)?
Can you post some pictures of the damage to your needle palms? Have you seen the mites on your palms, and if so can you post pictures of the mites too?
Outside palms if they are small enough to reach the palm fronds, try spraying them with soapy water or a miticide.
They aren't houseplants but are small enough to reach the fronds. In the OP, I mentioned that they're Needle Palms in Tennessee, which are shrubs rather than trees and will thrive outdoors around here (they're about as hardy as Southern Magnolia and Japanese Plum Yew, so they make a good "subtropical indicator plant").
Where could I find miticides? Maybe not right now, but at least once all these chaotic shutdowns end.
Unfortunately the red palm mites are rather different and aren't as easy to deal with as the common red spider mites that most of us in continental North America are more accustomed to. Red palm mites are a relatively recent newcomer introduced to the North American continent (Louisiana first, and now spreading out from there) and they are very tough and tenacious customers who have decimated entire crops in some of the tropical island countries they've come from.
Soap and water and common miticides don't work on them the same way they might on red spider mites. Studies and research and trial and error are still being done to find more effective controls for them. Natural biological predators on continental North America that have been suggested include green lacewings and ladybugs. Studies have also shown that each island the red palm mites come from has individual predators that are different from the predators on each of the other islands and indicate that each island has had to evolve and develop its own unique mite predators specific to that island.
There is a type of fungus (I can't remember the name of it) that kills them, and some allium oils have been found to be effective against them. You could try hard neck garlic oil taken from macerated and pressed cloves and spray it on the plants. It dries into a hard lacquer on the mites and kills them and their eggs but does not harm the plants it's sprayed on. However that is an expensive and laborious process to undertake.
You really need to be able to confirm without a doubt what they are. Personally I believe that if you are 100% absolutely positive that your palms have red palm mites on them you should treat the plants as contagions that are now a threat to your state that you have imported them into. Burn the plants and scorch the soil they've been growing in and then dispose of all of it. Sanitize the rest of the area where the palms were located. If you replace them with new palms do NOT locate them anywhere in the vicinity of where the afflicted palms were located.
And don't be shipping in any more plants from known effected areas.
Can you post some pictures of the damage to your needle palms? Have you seen the mites on your palms, and if so can you post pictures of the mites too?
.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoisite
Unfortunately the red palm mites are rather different and aren't as easy to deal with as the common red spider mites that most of us in continental North America are more accustomed to. Red palm mites are a relatively recent newcomer introduced to the North American continent (Louisiana first, and now spreading out from there) and they are very tough and tenacious customers who have decimated entire crops in some of the tropical island countries they've come from.
Soap and water and common miticides don't work on them the same way they might on red spider mites. Studies and research and trial and error are still being done to find more effective controls for them. Natural biological predators on continental North America that have been suggested include green lacewings and ladybugs. Studies have also shown that each island the red palm mites come from has individual predators that are different from the predators on each of the other islands and indicate that each island has had to evolve and develop its own unique mite predators specific to that island.
There is a type of fungus (I can't remember the name of it) that kills them, and some allium oils have been found to be effective against them. You could try hard neck garlic oil taken from macerated and pressed cloves and spray it on the plants. It dries into a hard lacquer on the mites and kills them and their eggs but does not harm the plants it's sprayed on. However that is an expensive and laborious process to undertake.
You really need to be able to confirm without a doubt what they are. Personally I believe that if you are 100% absolutely positive that your palms have red palm mites on them you should treat the plants as contagions that are now a threat to your state that you have imported them into. Burn the plants and scorch the soil they've been growing in and then dispose of all of it. Sanitize the rest of the area where the palms were located. If you replace them with new palms do NOT locate them anywhere in the vicinity of where the afflicted palms were located.
And don't be shipping in any more plants from known effected areas.
.
I really wish I could do this... but I just can't.
Although I've been able to upload screenshots and drawings on my PC to here, I don't know how to sync photos taken on my phone to my PC. Mom's gone on vacation, so she can't teach me how until she gets back even if I ask.
Also, I can't just get rid of them and the soil and everything. It's not that I don't want to protect wildlife/gardens (I do want to protect plant/animal life). But if I asked my parents for them to be burned and the soil removed and everything, it'd not only be a lot of work but also be $120 rather than just $60 wasted, and I doubt they'd believe me with more advanced chemical treatments anyways. And even if that did all happen, I seriously doubt they'd let me replace them, especially not in another part of our land.
Although thankfully I doubt they'll spread far. We don't get hurricanes and tropical storms, and not many people have planted palms here yet. But that doesn't mean I don't want to do something. Man, if only I wasn't underage (I'm 17) and had like tens of thousands saved up, I'd just buy my own land already and plant all my stuff there, not having to worry about them. But I'm too cowardly to do anything right now, and it'd take years to save up enough to buy 15+ acres of land to start my plant farm early (especially considering I'll need it to be near a major city where I could rent an apartment, which would cost extra).
If it's really that bad and they do spread, my reputation in my area could well become an extremely negative one and damaged irreversibly. I didn't even know about the palm mites when we got them! Not that I'm not already widely hated here for silly reasons (people here think I'm weird), but they'd finally have a real reason to hate me. Maybe I really should move to Memphis or Dallas instead of Nashville... and it'd be cheaper anyways
Last edited by Sun Belt-lover L.A.M.; 03-27-2020 at 09:34 PM..
It doesn't have to be a disaster. The first thing you have to do is positively identify the problem and if you haven't actually seen mites (which you never said if you saw mites or not) then you do NOT have a positive ID yet. If the trees have red palm mites you should be able to see the mites on the under or back sides of the leaves and hiding in crevices and crannies where the leaf stems grow out of the base or trunk of the palm. They are a super bright red, much brighter red than red spider mites, and they tend to cluster together in hiding spots.
So get in there and do a thorough inspection everywhere with a flashlight and a magnifying glass and look for tiny bright red dots. If you find the tiny red dots those are red mites, then you need to identify the type of red mites. Spider mites are a darker, muddier shade of red and are a solid colour. Red palm mites are bright red sometimes with black patterns on the red and they have growths on them that look like little white bubbles on the ends of hairs.
Look for very fine delicate spider webbing too. If there are any strands of webbing visible anywhere then the mites are spider mites. If there are no strands of webbing anywhere then they are palm mites. If you find strands of webbing but can't see any red mites then you have the greenish-white spider mites and they are harder to spot because they blend in with plant colour. It would be better for you if you have spider mites of any colour rather than palm mites because spider mites are easier to get rid of and treat the plants for if the plants aren't too far gone.
Mites aren't the only things that can cause similar symptoms such as you described. So if you can't find any signs of mites then the problem could be something else.
Is there a nearby nursery that you could go to, to show the manager the pictures on your phone and also bring him specimens taken from the leaves to see if the manager can identify the damage and cause? Then you can get the manager to recommend a remedy or a miticide if he thinks it's mites.
If you are not able to approach a nursery or buy a remedy or miticide after doing your inspection and if you do find evidence of mites of any kind then you will have to improvise from home. Hose down the plants first with plain water. Then use a spray bottle to spray them with soapy, sudsy water as wit-nit suggested, ordinary dish soap will do, like Dawn or Palmolive (I use Palmolive). Saturate them everywhere so they are dripping wet, over and under leaves, in crevices and in all the rough areas around the base/trunk. Feel free to go nuts and over-do it with the soapy water. Allow that to sit on the plants for a couple of hours and then hose the plants down with plain water again to flush away any mites that the soap has killed or loosened.
Allow the plants to air dry first then saturate every inch of them with soapy water one more time, spray the ground under them very well too, and leave it all on for a full day and night then rinse the palms with plain water again to flush everything off them. Watch for a week to ten days and see if there is an improvement in the plants' appearance and be sure to inspect them every day during that period for any signs of mites recurring. If there is, hit them with the soapy water again until you can make up a garlic oil insecticide. I'll tell you later how to make that if you need me to, and you would have to make your own for it to work properly because the garlic oil treatments that are sold in nurseries etc. aren't good enough, they're far too weak and ineffective.
Isn't it pretty difficult to see if their eight little bitty palms are red?
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