Pitiful Palm Predicament In Pharr
by K.C. Fletcher
published June 2018
These two Mexican Fan Palms (Washingtonia
robusta) on S. Cage Blvd. in the center
of the City of Pharr are in opposite states of
health. They are an example of the adverse effects
of urbanization upsetting the usually longlived,
free of pest and disease, palm living the
past four decades, majestically lining the South
Cage Blvd. corridor to downtown Pharr.
These RGV non-native palms are now succumbing,
area-wide, to an atypical bacteria
called a phytoplasm. Lacking the typical bacterial
rigid cell wall, phytoplasms must live
within the body of, and are spread by, palm
frond feeding insects thought to be accidentally
imported on palms from Florida. Phytoplasms
cannot survive outside of the insect body or
the palm's internal passageways that circulate
the sugars produced within the palm leaves,
properly called fronds, which flows under pressure
to all parts of an over ninety foot tall fullgrown
specimen.
The native sabal palm (Sabal texensis) may
be immune to this introduced disease menace,
or much more resistant, time will tell. In general,
native plants resist any disease threat, compared
to introduced greenery.
All palms are classified botanically closest
to the grasses. They are tree-like, but definitely
not trees. Like all plants, palms are endowed
with a genetic potential which can be limited
by several environmental factors such as the
soil and the fact that roots require access to
oxygen from the air trapped between the dirt
particles and those same soil spaces containing
water. These spaces are termed pores by soil
scientists.
Palms do poorly when compaction of the
soil permanently reduces or eliminates the soil
pore spaces containing water and air trapped
between soil particles. The roots metabolically
combine oxygen from the air in the soil with
the sugar from the palm fronds, high above,
to produce energy to power the busy root cells
which are constantly multiplying and elongating
to drill those absorbing roots throughout
the soil on a constant hunt for water and thirteen
essential elements.
Palms deprived of potassium in the soil can
result in outright death, or such a weakened
state of defenses that infectious diseases and/or
pests may place that palm on a spiral to a slow
but certain demise.
A high soil pH, caused by leaching calcium
hydroxide from concrete, can chemically burn
roots and make the surrounding soil more basic,
particularly interfering with that palm's
requirement of high potassium and magnesium
uptake. Covering the base of the palm, where
the roots visibly emerge from the trunk at the
root initiation zone, and then compacting that
soil, eliminating soil pores, decreases oxygen
uptake for respiration suffocating those roots.
A downtown Pharr old-timer remembers
those good-old-days, over forty-five years
ago, when TxDot transplanted those palms,
now towering over forty feet tall. They have
survived nature-made catastrophies, such as
hurricane winds above ground, to apparently
succumb to the pure man-made, underhanded
destruction of highly corrosive concrete leaking
into the underground soil of the root ball
mat. This, combined with depriving that palm
of vital roots ripped out during demolition
for recent curb renovation, and especially
the washout of toxic concrete direcly into the
rooted soil, all directly contribute to the palm's
much too early demise.
Before this downtown,
moribund green infrastructure's man made, slow murder at the northeast corner of Pharr City Hall,118 S. Cage, is given the 'coupe de
chainsaw', please visit. Raise your hand with
the back of your fingers facing towards your
face and wave a palm to palm good-bye. The
final deep South Texas chainsaw massacre will
probably take place in the dead of night.
Until then,'Pharr-thee-well' and a 'frond'
farewell, tall friend. Thank you for your beauty,
creating a sense of place, destination, history,
refuge for wildlife, resting refueling,
nesting and, especially, all that oxygen from
your friendly fronds. We regrettably apologize
to you for your below ground betrayal creating
this sad tale of these Two Palms of Pharr!