Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Canary Island palms in peril

South American palm weevil hard to kill

South American palm weevil, aka Rhynchophorus palmarum
South American palm weevil, aka Rhynchophorus palmarum

San Ysidro, Chula Vista, and now Bonita residents are watching their Canary Island palms choke and die — sometimes with the entire crown falling to the ground below. The culprit? The South American palm weevil (Rhynchophorus palmarum) on its first forays into Southern California.

"They lay eggs in the crown and the grubs destroy the tissue in the palm heart and destroy the tissue that holds the fronds, so the first sign of infestation is seeing the crown droop and turn brown," says Mark Hoddle, an entomologist with the University of California Riverside who is considered the state expert on the big bug.

"Crown collapse" of a San Ysidro date palm

"The tree can't grow any new fronds and all you are left with is a halo of dying fronds."

Sponsored
Sponsored

Hoddle said that by making palms a part of the Southern California landscape, humans have created a potentially enormous area for the pests to infest.

"In California, palms define the urban landscape, and the insects travel from one human-made palm oasis to the next," he said. "I hate to think what could happen if they reach the palm oases in the Anza-Borrego Desert."

For now, they're eating the tastiest palms, feasting mainly on Canary Island palms, but they've been known to lay eggs in and kill other types of palms as well. California's ornamental palms and date palms is where they'll lay eggs once the feast of Canary Island palms ends.

"They've killed many palms in Bonita and the Sweetwater Regional Park, and now they're killing trees in the Glen Abbey Cemetery,” Hoddle said. "Just think of the Hotel del Coronado and the many places that have planted palms, and how vulnerable they are to an insect with tremendous ability to fly distances."

The adult bugs are big — between an inch or two in length — and they're loud. "You can hear them flying in from quite far away," Hoddle said. "They're black with red markings."

Dead palms at a Tijuana high school

Hoddle first heard of the bugs' arrival in North America from a colleague in Tijuana who saw palms dying in this odd fashion. Now, Hoddle and his wife drive to San Diego most weekends to see how far the bugs have spread. They've easily captured the bugs using a bucket full of pheromone-tainted overripe fruit, he said.

"We've tested their flying capacity and our data suggests it can fly quite far, tens of miles in a day," Hoddle said. "Its potential territory in California and the Southwest is enormous."

The bugs have hopscotched their way from one human-created oasis to another, and there's no end in sight, Hoddle said.

There's also no funding to study the bugs and protecting the trees comes down to persistent treatment with pesticides that has to become serial, regular treatment to work, he said.

"There are palm trees in the Mediterranean with PVC pipes up the side and a shower head at the top where a pump blasts pesticides every few months," he said. "There are also systemic pesticides you can put in the tree roots. Both of these methods have to be repeated at regular intervals to succeed."

The bug is known to carry a deadly bonus: red ring nematodes, which are sure and determined killers of palms.

"We haven't found the nematode so far, but there aren't many people looking," he said.

Meanwhile, Hoddle and wife continue to drive the county looking for the weevils, which seem likely to spread throughout California.

"I went to Sweetwater after the storms rolled through two weeks ago and there were many fallen crowns," Hoddle said. "The crowns weigh a couple of hundred pounds and if they fall on something like a car or house, they can do considerable damage."

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

San Diego seawalls depend on Half Moon Bay case

Casa Mira townhomes sued after losing 20 feet of bluffs in storm
South American palm weevil, aka Rhynchophorus palmarum
South American palm weevil, aka Rhynchophorus palmarum

San Ysidro, Chula Vista, and now Bonita residents are watching their Canary Island palms choke and die — sometimes with the entire crown falling to the ground below. The culprit? The South American palm weevil (Rhynchophorus palmarum) on its first forays into Southern California.

"They lay eggs in the crown and the grubs destroy the tissue in the palm heart and destroy the tissue that holds the fronds, so the first sign of infestation is seeing the crown droop and turn brown," says Mark Hoddle, an entomologist with the University of California Riverside who is considered the state expert on the big bug.

"Crown collapse" of a San Ysidro date palm

"The tree can't grow any new fronds and all you are left with is a halo of dying fronds."

Sponsored
Sponsored

Hoddle said that by making palms a part of the Southern California landscape, humans have created a potentially enormous area for the pests to infest.

"In California, palms define the urban landscape, and the insects travel from one human-made palm oasis to the next," he said. "I hate to think what could happen if they reach the palm oases in the Anza-Borrego Desert."

For now, they're eating the tastiest palms, feasting mainly on Canary Island palms, but they've been known to lay eggs in and kill other types of palms as well. California's ornamental palms and date palms is where they'll lay eggs once the feast of Canary Island palms ends.

"They've killed many palms in Bonita and the Sweetwater Regional Park, and now they're killing trees in the Glen Abbey Cemetery,” Hoddle said. "Just think of the Hotel del Coronado and the many places that have planted palms, and how vulnerable they are to an insect with tremendous ability to fly distances."

The adult bugs are big — between an inch or two in length — and they're loud. "You can hear them flying in from quite far away," Hoddle said. "They're black with red markings."

Dead palms at a Tijuana high school

Hoddle first heard of the bugs' arrival in North America from a colleague in Tijuana who saw palms dying in this odd fashion. Now, Hoddle and his wife drive to San Diego most weekends to see how far the bugs have spread. They've easily captured the bugs using a bucket full of pheromone-tainted overripe fruit, he said.

"We've tested their flying capacity and our data suggests it can fly quite far, tens of miles in a day," Hoddle said. "Its potential territory in California and the Southwest is enormous."

The bugs have hopscotched their way from one human-created oasis to another, and there's no end in sight, Hoddle said.

There's also no funding to study the bugs and protecting the trees comes down to persistent treatment with pesticides that has to become serial, regular treatment to work, he said.

"There are palm trees in the Mediterranean with PVC pipes up the side and a shower head at the top where a pump blasts pesticides every few months," he said. "There are also systemic pesticides you can put in the tree roots. Both of these methods have to be repeated at regular intervals to succeed."

The bug is known to carry a deadly bonus: red ring nematodes, which are sure and determined killers of palms.

"We haven't found the nematode so far, but there aren't many people looking," he said.

Meanwhile, Hoddle and wife continue to drive the county looking for the weevils, which seem likely to spread throughout California.

"I went to Sweetwater after the storms rolled through two weeks ago and there were many fallen crowns," Hoddle said. "The crowns weigh a couple of hundred pounds and if they fall on something like a car or house, they can do considerable damage."

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

O’side Tree Lighting & Gift Market, Holiday Lights at the Museum, The Elovaters and Little Stranger

Events December 5-December 6, 2024
Next Article

Will Trump’s Baja resort be built after all?

Long-stalled development sparks art exhibit, gets new life
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader