Palm Nutrition
Unlike most trees and shrubs in your landscape, many of the exotic (non-native) palm trees have higher nutritional requirements and are more likely to have deficiency symptoms when soil nutrient levels are not adequate or when soil pH ties up soil nutrients making some nutrients unavailable.
Soil pH
Soil pH levels are often changed during construction or when fill soil from another area is brought onto the site. Often concrete mortar is mixed on the site in a location that is very near the planned structure. Many subcontractors have the bad habit of washing their equipment off under trees. Concrete residue can raise the soil pH in some areas to levels as high as pH 10 which will not support plants. Often soil pH levels of 8 or greater can be found near the barrier island in Florida. Never lime your soil without first checking the soil pH at your county IFAS Cooperative Extension office. Call them for instructions on how to gather a soil sample or samples from your yard.
Nutrition
Most palm nutrient deficiencies can be visually identified. The following are all symptoms of some common macro- and micro-element ornamental palm deficiencies. Boron deficiency can be especially dramatic. Usually only one of the following is visible but sometimes more than one symptoms is present, complicating diagnosis.