This photo, taken earlier this morning at Waialae Beach Park, shows a coconut tree (center) that has lost its top and is dead or quickly dying.
There are fungal or bacterial problems that can kill a coconut tree, but over the past several years there’s been lots of worry about a new invasive species, the coconut rhinoceros beetle. The adult beetles bore into the heart of the coconut, eventually killing it.
The state is trying to track the coconut beetle. For a year or so, we had a trap hanging from a shower tree in front of our house. Volunteers would come and check to see whether any of the beetles had been caught, allowing them to map the area.
I have no idea what killed this tree. But I’ll be paying more attention to the other trees in the park, and on the golf course, for signs of what might be at work here.
A topless coconut tree, Waialae Beach Park.
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My sister lives in Aina Haina and noticed a neighbor’s Samoan Coconut tree had died and her coconut tree looked funny, so she called the Rhinoceros Beetle hotline and a representative came out to inspect her tree and the neighbors. It was not the invasive beetle, but old age that done in the neighbors. Her tree was affected by the heavy winds. She was glad that it was not the beetle.
Sometime aggressive trimming kills the growth so trees end up dying – the taller more narrow trees are likely old and headed that way…
I wonder if centipedes who inhabit the same mulch piles as these invasive beetles might be enlisted to kill the coconut rhinoceros Beetle off? One pest against another.