Treating red palm weevil - "Palmdoc"

[carolyn]

We have a date palm that we have been told has been affected by the dreaded weevil. It is only at an early stage at the moment.
A leaflet was put in our letterbox from a company http://www.palmdoc.eu/
They look quite expensive, but claim to be able to treat infected trees.
Has anyone on the forum used them and with what sort of success?

[laserblazer]

I know my daughter has spent loads of money on injections and such, without much success. It's really sad

[DVBRO]

Speaking to a lot of friends who own properties here and have had a similar problem, unless I am proved wrong, unfortunately the only cure, is to have the Palm taken down. Once they are infected, it appears, that is it. Saves a lot of money trying to save it.

[EMM]

Our gardner, well known in the area and who looks after a number of high profile owned properties says that although he is prepared to treat infected palms for those who are prepared to pay in his opinion it is a waste of time.
He fears that the bug will eventually spread into many more imported varieties.

[Lesley Jean]

I will find out the name of the people we use, but we also noticed in November that our palm had a bit of a 'droop' on one side so we got the people out who our house manager recommended, he has treated the palm with 100 litres of insecticide once a week for 3 weeks and then a month later, so far our palm is still there, still looking green and as far as I know if they are affected badly they are dead in 3 weeks, well this is now 8 weeks ago so we are hoping that there may be a chance that the tree has been saved, we now need to treat it every 2 months to keep the grubs at bay. We have only been charged 45 euros a visit which to be honest as our tree is such a central part of our landscaping we are happy to pay.

Found it -

Joao Carlos Granadeiro
Rua do Terreiro 18
8400 Lagoa

917 811 112
282 353 057

[maccasa]

When we were about to buy 3 large "Phoenix Canarias" in 2009, the nursey warned us of the problem of the red palm weevil and we decided on 3 "Washingtonia" instead. Since then I have extensively researced this bug infestation and the sum total seems to be that some (very expensive) injected pesticides will kill the larvae, but they are ~50% effective at best and do not prevent re-occurence. You are therefore looking at spending around €200 each year to keep a palm tree alive. If you have a specimen tree of several m high it may be worth it, but choosing a different variety, like washingtonia, is probably the best solution. However I now understand that there are reports of almost every variety of palm being attacked.

[Matryx]

I was presented with a bill for 300 euros from our housekeeper when the gardener treated our plam tree. It had better bloody work for that

[EMM]

Sadly " washingtonia " was also mentioned by our gardner as also now being at risk.

[carolyn]

Thanks to everyone who has replied. It is very difficult to know what to do - it is a very big tree (about 10m) so we would be sorry to lose it .. however we do not want to waste money. At the moment we have the Palmdoc people coming to assess on Wednesday. We will see what they say (and what they want to charge!)

[traveler]

Good luck. We have spent so much money trying to save ours (and pretreating as well) that we are now resigned to just letting them go.

[Martingee]

I'm in the hill above Loule and like many others my neighbours have been hit badly by the weevil. I have a Date Palm, planted from a pot 24 years ago and is now approx 8 metres high, it is magnificient and a central focal point of a terrace. As you can imagine,I would be seriously upset to lose it.
Early in the summer I found a weevil on the outside of the tree. Shortly afterwards the tree started to give of a sickly smell but the foliage looked perfect. I dug around for info and came across a YouTube video explaining the problem given by the expert from a large company called Sanipina in Lagoa. I went down there, spoke to him (he speaks perfect English) and he sold me two small containers of very powerful differing pesticides. One will kill the buggars (together with their larvae - there are normally three generations of weevils in a tree at one time) and the other to repel new invaders. These to be diluted at approx 5-8 ml to 10 litres of water and to be poured into the crown of the tree at 50 litres per week. I did this and the smell disappeared.
I now treat the tree with 40 litres once a month and when I asked how long I should continue this for I was told - for life. The cost of the chemicals is not great I think I spend approx €12.00 each visit and that now lasts 4 months. A good investment - €36.00 a year - it's worth trying and my tree still looks healthy.

[martin]

for those who missed it (check out part 2 as well) in English and Portuguese with subtitles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AIiDoyA-2E

[Martingee]

That's the one - couldn't find it before

[martin]

it has now arrived in California!
seehere

http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-10-dis ... ornia.html

[blue]

We have had our palms treated the same way as Martingee regularly every month since the weevil first became a serious problem in our area & have weevil traps in the garden & have managed to fend of the buggers so far, one tree was attacked but seems to have survived, unfortunately we can see a lot of palms around us that have died completely, a lot of people can't afford the treatment. I don't know what the longterm answer is, will we have to treat our palms for ever?