Dilema With Palms

[Froggy]

I'm from the East Coast and haven't encountered many Palms. I would love to have some feed back on climbing Palms. I moved out to Southern California and I can't seem to get the grasp of these trees. I'd really like to know the tricks to tackling these trees. Please help in any way you can. Thanks ahead of time to all of you guys.

 

[pbtree]

Froggy,

What part of So Cal did you move to?

As to palms, I hate the darn things. You should check with Ekka - his moniker is palm slayer!

 

[Froggy]

Reply

I'm in South Oceanside and I'm really struggling with these Palms, but I don't think it's something I can't figure out with the right guidance.

 

[Koa Man]

If I can't use a lift, I just put on a set of gaffs, a steel core lanyard and climb them. There is no other cost effective way to climb palms and all the ones who say otherwise have probably never climbed a palm. This is the way all the tree services in Hawaii deal with palms. Gaffing a palm does not affect the health of the palm like they do on "real" trees. It affects the appearance, but after 22 years of climbing the same palms 3 times a year, I have noticed no decline in the health of the tree. Most of my palm work is coconuts, a few fan palms and occasionally a Royal or date palm.

As far as experience, I really don't know how many times I have climbed a palm. I know it is well over 10,000.

 

[Ekka]

Check out this video, compression in the queen palms in the head and under it, be alert!

http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=33773

 

[Bermie]

Yo Koa, any chance of a pic of one of those palms you regularly spike?
I would like to the aesthetic effect of the gaff marks over time. Honestly I'm curious. Are these palm in high amenity value areas (hotels etc.) or out of the way stuff?

 

[Koa Man]

These palms are all over the place, including high end hotels.
Here is a shot of some 75 footers. We go up as high as we can with the spider,
then we spike the rest of the way. If the spider cannot get to it, we spike them
from the ground up. There are quite a bit of palms I do not need to spike at all
since getting the spiderlift.

 

[foodforests]

I think that palms with pukas (holes) all over the trunks look pretty terrible. I guess the fact them that palms feed themselves via vascular bundles rather than cambium layer around the whole trunk diameter is what makes them resilient to spike damage. Still, they look pretty sad once they've been spiked a few times. And I do wonder if spiking them, while not on its own being a enough to kill a palm, wouldn't in combination with other stresses be partly responsible for putting some plants into decline.
Seems like if you can access them from a lift or whatever that is infinitely preferable. Of course, in many situations this simply wouldn't be possible.
I'm not speaking from experience here, but isn't it true that it is safer to prune palms from the top down, rather than from the bottom up? Guys have been suffocated trying to go in from underneath, right?

 

[Koa Man]

foodforest,
Glad to see another Hawaii member. Absolutely no danger of suffication on coconuts, but it has killed climbers on certain types of palms. When doing those types of palms and if it has to be climbed, I cut a channel all the way to the top, and then start working my way around cutting from the top down. This is the easiest way to trim a heavily loaded coconut as well.

 

[Bermie]

I have to agree with foodforests, they don't look too nice! It's too bad those palms have to be spiked to trim them, but they look really tall so I guess there wasn't much choice.
Thanks for posting the pic Koa.
We've got some kind of fungus affecting coconuts, older ones that were
severely stressed by the hurricane three years ago go into decline then their tops flop over and 'night, night'.

 

[Treeinnovator]

anyone ever hear stories of coconuts falling from those really high palms and causing severe property damage or worse, injuring a person walking by? basically it's a bowling ball being dropped from 75 ft high.

 

[Tio]

anyone ever hear stories of coconuts falling from those really high palms and causing severe property damage or worse, injuring a person walking by? basically it's a bowling ball beding dropped from 75 ft high.

Hmmm. . .

Yeah.

I actually saw a little ol' four year old kid get killed on the beach in Honduras that way.

I am starting to worry about meteorites now.

(and yes, I will continue until y'all climb down off of your high horse and start talking real world)

 

[Bermie]

anyone ever hear stories of coconuts falling from those really high palms and causing severe property damage or worse, injuring a person walking by? basically it's a bowling ball being dropped from 75 ft high.

I used to work at a hotel where we had several coconut palms around the outside restaurant deck. I actually saw/heard one fall about 30' smack onto the railing by the kitchen access. The railing was at least 3" thick wolmanized pitch pine, the coconut cracked it. There was a table for four in the setback nearby, luckily no-one was sitting there. Needless to say the next day I had the tree byes over to cut off the rest of the nuts!
TRUE STORY.

 

[trevmcrev]

Thinking out loud here in terms of hazard reduction. Is there a kind of chemical treatment that would prevent them fruiting so not producing coconuts? Ive read about a product (Snipper) that stops SweetGum (Liquidamber) producing seedpods and trying to find out if it'll work on some other species we have a problem with fruiting here, Lilly Pilly (Acmena, Syzigium)

If this worked on coconuts it could save a lot of headaches:bang: , in more ways than one And prevent ugly spike marks and need for climbing these buggers.

Trev

 

[Tio]

Thinking out loud here in terms of hazard reduction. Is there a kind of chemical treatment that would prevent them fruiting so not producing coconuts? Ive read about a product (Snipper) that stops SweetGum (Liquidamber) producing seedpods and trying to find out if it'll work on some other species we have a problem with fruiting here, Lilly Pilly (Acmena, Syzigium)

If this worked on coconuts it could save a lot of headaches:bang: , in more ways than one And prevent ugly spike marks and need for climbing these buggers.

Trev

Also thinking out loud.

Coconut oil.

Suntans.

Rich folks.

How about just not standing under them?

Anybody ever thunk of that?

 

[Koa Man]

Is there a kind of chemical treatment that would prevent them fruiting so not producing coconuts?

The person who invents a fruit eliminator that works on coconut palms would become an instant multimillionaire. One hotel in Waikiki has over 500 coconut palms and they get trimmed 4 times a year at $50 each.

 

[trevmcrev]

The person who invents a fruit eliminator that works on coconut palms would become an instant multimillionaire. One hotel in Waikiki has over 500 coconut palms and they get trimmed 4 times a year at $50 each.

Have you researched Snipper at all? I think its produced by Rainbow. I'd be getting some and trialing it anyway, unless of course you've already heard it doesn't work on coconuts. Hang on, why am i telling you:taped: , best i buy a plane ticket myself. Hmmmmm, Hawaii, always wanted to go there for a holiday.
Trev

 

[Koa Man]

I'll check it out and if it lists coconuts, I'll buy some and test it. If it works, I just may go pay a visit to ALL the hotels in Hawaii and tell them I will maintain their coconuts for $100 per tree per year. Hmmm let's see, all the hotels in Hawaii probably have at least a 100,000 coconuts X $100 = early retirement in luxury.

 

[trevmcrev]

I'll check it out and if it lists coconuts, I'll buy some and test it. If it works, I just may go pay a visit to ALL the hotels in Hawaii and tell them I will maintain their coconuts for $100 per tree per year. Hmmm let's see, all the hotels in Hawaii probably have at least a 100,000 coconuts X $100 = early retirement in luxury.

Hey dont forget my cut, free flight to Hawaii and accomodation sound sweeeet to me:hmm3grin2orange: Not really asking too much for turning you into the 10 Million Dollar Man is it?:biggrinbounce2:


Trev

 

[Bermie]

Also thinking out loud.

Coconut oil.

Suntans.

Rich folks.

How about just not standing under them?

Anybody ever thunk of that?

Tio, you need to chill out a bit bro'.
You live in Kansas, not many palms there I'll bet.
Sitting under a palm tree is the whole point of being on vacation in the tropics.
Have YOU ever tried to persuade a tourist on the vacation of their lifetime, on the beach surrounded by coconut palms, warm breezes, blue water, and sun, 'Um excuse me, please don't sit under the palm trees, they are lethal life threatening objects that will drop 10lb bombs on you and may seriously maim or kill you', just another caring service from the hotel to ensure you enjoy your holiday to it's fullest! Enjoy your day."
Well, we in the tropics don't do that either, HENCE this interesting discussion on the pros and cons of various methods of nut removal.
Keep it up chaps.