next »

[Alec]

We have six lovely Canary Island Palms (Phoenix) in our garden. This week, our cat (who is very agile) caught a large red flying beetle. It was the dreaded red palm weevil which is destroying these palms along the costa at an alarming rate!

Hastily looking this up on the internet I found masses of information, mostly technical reports, much of it quite discouraging. However one report showed that palms could be guardedagainst it by regular spraying with a systemic insecticide, the most effective (in this test) being Dimethoate.

My horticultural shop sold only large bottles, for professional use only, at 11€. Obviously nasty stuff, not the sort of thing I want in my garden, but when needs must...

So we dressed up in head-to-toe waterproof suits, hats, goggles, breathing masks, gloves and boots, and thoroughly drenched the trunk and crown of the tree as recommended.

It was an awful job, not one we want to repeat in a hurry, but we only hope it did the trick.

Has anyone else suffered from this beetle, or knows of it in their area?

Alec

[Liz]

Dear Alec,  sounds absolutely dreadful, mind you the mental picture of your attire rushing around with an insecticide spray makes one think of "Quatermass"! perhaps you are too young to remember.   Anyway, earlier in the year our community gardener sprayed a number of the palms in our gardens but to no avail as a surgeon from the local council came a few weeks later to cut them down as they were too far gone.   I don´t want to alarm you but if the insecticide doesn´t work you may have to resort to this drastic measure.   I understand from Stefan, our chappie, it´s the job for the council as they have to make a note of the numbers of palms and what breed they are that have to be destroyed, and the area so a watch can be taken on the progress or otherwise of this horrible beatle.   Good luck Alec.  ps you didn´t by chance take a piccy of the fancy dress?   Sorry, I don´t really mean to make light of your catastrophe, but it mightr liven up our letters.   L

[Alec]

Liz, Thanks for relating your own experience with this menace, even if it wasn't too encouraging; at this stage I must stress that the only sign has been this single marauding weevil so let's hope he's just a rogue male searching for a mate. As for being old enough to remember Quatermass, however, I spent all of my formative childhood years carrying a gasmask everywhere on the orders of HM Government (even if it did have a mickey mouse design , and it reminded me more of that! I did take a photo of the bug*** but it isn't very clear as I didn't want to release it from my plastic bugbox! However there are plenty of good pictures on the web and he is definitely comes from the same clan. Alec.

[Campo Girl]

Oh my Alec, that is a first for this forum, I did write about the dreaded Red Weevil on our gardening blog - our post is here
http://gardeningspain.blogspot.com/2008/04/red-weevil-in-spanish-palm-trees.html

Thanks for telling us about your endeavours and so sorry to hear you have been infected, I was not aware of there being a cure and I will certainly be remembering this post for the future.

Liz is right in saying that it is a job for the council and I even heard that we have to register our palm trees now with our local town halls, however, I am not so sure about that - we have about 18 different variations of palm trees and I pray every day that my large palm tree doesn't suffer, I would cry if that had to go

Fingers crossed for you buddy

[Alec]

That's the beastie, but the one I spotted (and others I've seen illustrated) have a few small brown spots on the front area just behind the "beak". However I must stress that there's no sign of infection and hopefully our rigorous treatment will keep things that way!

Alec

PS I was hoping to add a photo and selected one under "Additional Options...Attach" - but it didn't appear when previewed. It was under the necessary 128Kb limit. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

[Campo Girl]

Hola Alec

Wow you look like a proper E.T. bad man with all your gear on LOL

I can see the image that you posted or should there be more?

Campo Girl