Not sure what's up with this Ensete of mine...
It sure is showing signs of illness. All of the leaves that have opened this spring look stunted and disfigured.
A friend of mine who owns a nursery said not to worry, that conditions will improve in the next two months... but I'm still concerned.
Anyone know what's wrong with my tree?
Here's another pic...
and another pic...
this is the last image.
We bought this at Lowe's last spring and it has been a very happy and healthy specimen... until this spring.
We didn't have a bad winter in '07-'08 like we did the previous year when a lot of plants and palms in So. Cal. suffered extreme frost damage...
Looks like you got insect damage while the leaf was still emerging waiting to unfurl. Probably some type of caterpillar.
Didn't think about caterpillars. Hopefully it will grow out of the ugly leaves soon.
That must have been one huge ginormous caterpillar.
Out of camera memory so can't take a picture. Have 8 plumeria that I got from the recent co-op. They are doing well but some of them have put out strange formed leaves like yours. Odd. Definitely not a bug. Growing like that.
Christi
LouC, when you say, "definitely not a bug," do you mean, not an insect or not a disease? The term "bug" could be construed as either one.
Looks to me like possible phytotoxicity as a result of exposure to some chemical. Questions to ask are has anyone (you, neighbor, community) sprayed any chemical in your area? Have you fertilized or applied weed and feed to areas near the plants? Has suspect water runoff (detergent water, water from cleaning your car, etc.) gotten into the ground where the plants get their water?
LariAnn
Aroidia Research
LouC- It definitely could be a bug. Namely, thrips. They often cause damage on young leaves which is not very noticeable, but as teh leaf matures because the edges have been 'scored' by rasping mouthparts the leaf becomes mis-shapen and the thrips are often gone by then or only on new succulent leaves.
Sorry. Meant insect.
Lari, the plums are in gallon pots. Mixed Texas green sand, lava sand, mushroom compost and just a tad hardwood mulch in the wheelbarrow and used that for potting soil. All but two look normal. The other two are the ones with deformed leaves. Not every leaf, just some of them. Oh, after they had been in the pots for several days, mixed fish emulsion with water in a watering can and poured some in each. Actually another two plants are already blooming. A first for me.
Christi
cross-posted
Actually, FOF, my DH votes thrips in your bananas as well. He points to the fact that a number of leaves have damage more or less on one side of the leaf- a strong indication of thrips damage as they run up and down the inside of the leaf tube.
I've had clients of the nursery I work for send me pictures of Adonidia palm fronds that opened up and were completely skelotonized- saddlebacks will fly into malls and other interior spaces and lay eggs on the plants. They were completely stunned and had never seen anything like it!
Wish my camera was available. One of these leaves has what appears to be a normal shape, just small, closer to the soil. Then there is a space about 2 inches with just the middle stem connected to another identical odd little leaf. Not a very good description.
Christi
Hmmmm.....can you hear me scratching my head? How tall is your plant and how many leaves altogether? Is the problem primarily just that the leaves are small?
The terra cotta pot on the far right is one of the two with deformed leaves. Maybe by tomorrow I will have the camera going again.
Looks like classic thrips damage to me! If you are not big into spraying, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Depending on the species, some thrips show up certain times of the year and then go away. More prominant damage is possible, but the overall health of your plant is not affected by that little bit of damage.
thanks for the info...
LariAnn, I'm sure it didn't get any exposure to chemicals. This tree is growing on the far side of my pool and all it ever gets is water and regular applications of miracle grow fertilizer.
I guess it must be the thrips. I've never encountered any damage like this before, however... on any other plants in my yard.
2 factors have to do with that. Some species of thrips prefer certain plants- mostly tender leaves, vegetables, flowers, etc. The other is the way that plant's leaves are rolled up before it is fully formed, opened and "hardened off," causing the particular damage you are seeing. There are other signs of thrips damage, which may be presented a different way in other species- for example stippling, leaf drop, chlorosis, rolled up leaves, etc.
fauna4flora: here's a pic of the tree in its environment to give you some scale. Its about 10' tall right now to its tallest leaftip but seems to grow taller every day.. Only the new growth seems affected.
Beautiful planting! Is that a Kentia in that planter? Very very nice. Yeah, thrips prefer new growth when they attack, and although many species can and will also attack older leaves, those leaves do not get scarified and mis-shapen like the new growth. I'm not really good with banana types- is that one that produces fruit or one that is ornamental? If it is ornamental, I would use an imidacloprid product on that plant to prevent any possible damage to new leaves. The thrips may go away, but they may not, and your pool area is too nice for those plants to get damaged!
Thanks f4f, yes that is a double Kentia, which we planted behind the pool there two years ago or so. It is doing marvelously.
I just checked this morning and more leaves in the center of the banana tree have been attacked by the thrips or whatever is eating it! In fact, I hope it makes it. The new growth looks terrible as it is unfolding...>=-(
My Ensete is what is known as a false banana, strictly ornamental and does not bear fruit. In fact, when they do flower, they die, so I'm hoping it holds off on blooming for at least a couple more years! So I guess I should look for that imidacloprid, does HD or Lowe's carry it?
Both should carry it....
Thrips are a strictly sucking insect-they don't eat leaves, and your new leaves look like either a catapillar worm got them while they were still developing or its a cultural problem.
I looked up thrips and bananas and the damage that does occur with a certain kind of thrips that attacks bananas is nothing like what your leaves look like.
Heres the article http://www2.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/IP-10.pdf
The leaves seem 'rolled'...when they unroll do you find a lot of larvae? Thinking Banana Leaf Rollers....
didn't see any larvae when I looked this morning. Just more leaves that look like they were eaten when they were rolled up... >=-(
You could call your nearest Ag. Extension Service and ask...and ask if there are Banana leaf Rollers and/or another cats that eat nanners.
I don't know if this was mentioned above. I have grown a few of these out and have a friend that grows out a few hundred each year. He has more than idea conditions and is very good about his fertilizing and keeping all plants in pretty much perfect growing conditions. He and I both noticed this odd coloration's mutations and all around odd behavior in these plants. My thought is that these Ensete are not seed grown but tissue cultured and I believe that if the mother block of the TC is not refreshed or if it is multiplied to many times the clones of the plants start to have segments missing in the genetics or may have more possibilities on mutating. This seems to show more with certain plants than others. In some cases the results are interesting or actually better. For bananas other than the occasional variegation the results are half leaves missing segments or discoloration's. In one case I had a banana mutation from TC that would rip every leaf. The new leaves were ripped apart by the old leaves as it came out, even the pups planted in different areas showed the same leaf ripping effect.
Another result was Caladium Thia Beauty which was mass produced. I visited a nursery were they were growing out hundreds possibly thousands from TC. They had pulled alot of the mutations which had froms that resembled the true form to completely unusual mutations.
--
In a commercial application, there are tests to determine what is going on. Everyone points to tissue culture because trust me, it's too easy of a target- and this comes from someone within the grower community. What you are saying is certainly possible, however. You really have to send multiple plants well before becoming symptomatic off to be inspected before the leaf opens, or have a consultant inspect your crop. You could have insect or nutrient deficient liners....... Have any of yours or your friends' liner starts in either case grown out of the conditions you mentioned?
You may be onto to something Brian. I started to get the Ensetes from TC last year and had no problem with any of them-all uniform in growth habit. I think it was the company's first (maybe 2nd) year of offering them thru TC. This winter/spring, new shipment, I started to see deformed leaves on a few of them (out of 54 plants). I couldn't figure it out, like your friend above, they were grown in a grhouse in ideal conditions, same amt of fert etc. Aside from the deformed leaves, they didn't grow in heighth and they weren't growing roots
Insects weren't the problem. You can't grow this many ( I had a few hundred bananas and EE's also-no problems on them) side by side and not have insects start to hit them all if it were insects. Once the weather warmed up, they started to grow some, but still not normal. It wasn't nutrient defiencies either.
Welcome back Steve,
Is this the first leaf you have seen this with? This could just be a one leaf thing. Right now, I have 2 healthy palms that popped out two smaller leaves, being followed by normal sized leaves. I know palms are different, but maybe it's a one-time thing. Hopefully. Your yard looks great Steve.
Dave
Brian...interesting aspect I had never considered!!!!!
Good question to ask of the grower/dealer/nursery when buying a plant....
Carol
I keep waiting for the tree to get better but it's just getting worse.
I'm not holding out much hope for it as the center-most leaf that is still developing is almost all gone...
So it could be that it's mutating and there's nothing to be done?
I forgot I took these pics a couple of days ago.
It sure is looking like a prop from a twilight zone set
after the atomic war...
some of the leaf damage looks like it was eaten, some of it looks mutated.
I guess we could make a sci-fi movie about it the banana tree from Mars
amazingly fast-growing tree, next to my bambusa oldhamii, the fasting growing plant in my yard
the trunk looks amazing healthy.... but then the center growth is what, being eaten or a mutation?
this really looks mutated
The Banana Tree that Came From Outer Space
This looks similar to what I have been seeing in the plants. Their is not chewing on the leaves and not signs of virus or lack of food or neglect to the plant. In some cases the plant will recover and grow out of it, while some will not. Their is no other reason I can think of other than a mutation induced by TC. Most labs will keep a mother block that they will return to after to many divisions have been taken. This helps prevent such mutations. This should not prevent you from buying or growing TCed plants. The fact is if they were seed grown you would probably see a lot more variability than what is in TC. It would be interesting to see how far the spectrum could go if they did keep producing from old stock with out going back to the original starts.
Their are a lot of these mutations found in TC on the market today and I am sure their will be a ton more in the future. This is one of the very positive things of the TC mutations.
Here is a photo of a mutation I found. This is a Musa basjoo found out of TCed plants I grew. If you notice some of the leaf sections are missing on this plant as well.
