- Distribution: Most common in nurseries with overhead irrigation and in high rainfall areas.
- Symptoms: Initial symptoms are small, water-soaked, translucent to light yellow to light brown banded areas running along and around leaf veins. Mature lesions develop a brown to black color and may have a chlorotic (yellow) halo; lesions range from a minimum of 1-2 mm wide and in length up to the entire length of affected leaves.
Treatment:
- Eliminate overhead irrigation that impacts leaves, irrigate in the morning
instead of the evening, grow plants under cover from frequent rainfall - Use preventive sprays of copper-containing or antibiotic-containing
pesticides - Remove & destroy symptomatic leaves; destroy entire plants if they are
affected severely - Provide good air circulation around plants to allow leaf drying after they�
become wet - Do not transplant symptomatic plants into landscapes
Source: Bacterial Leaf Blight of Fishtail Palm, Scot Nelson, University of Hawai’i Manoa, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, Cooperative Extension Service Plant Disease PD-65, January 2009.
Bacterial Leaf Blight of Fishtail Palm. Photo courtesy Dr. Scot Nelson, UH CTAHR
