My Agave ovatifolia lives on in a lab...

When last I wrote about the melting Agave ovatifolia in the front corner of my garden (here) I was soliciting ideas for what to plant in its place. The day after I published that post I got an email from a fellow named Logan Collier who works for Bartlett Tree Experts..."I’ve been subscribed to your blog for a while, thank you for all your entertaining posts, I have learned a lot! Before you rip that agave out of the ground I could send it to my diagnostic lab to see why it declined. Let me know if you would like to do that." You know what my first thought was right? "How much is that gonna cost?" Turns out nothing, Logan was curious and wanted to learn more about pest and disease issues on agaves.

We agreed he'd come by and pick up the agave the following Monday, which gave me a few days to get it dug out. Except later that day I happened to wiggle the center of the agave (as one does) and it came loose in my hand. Gross.

Then I saw that little bugger (circled) and freaked out. Could it be? Please don't let it be larvae of the dreaded agave snout weevil! It sunk back into the goo quickly after I took that photo and I didn't see it (or others that size) again. 

Lots of Googling ensued and I ended up pretty sure it wasn't snout weevil larvae...but of course I was in full panic mode and needed to get the agave out right that very minute.

The soil was bone dry and the roots severed pretty easily.

Even the good looking half of the agave had some ugly on the bottom of the leaves.

Poor thing...

Where it was...

Agave no more... well, no more of that one, there are still plenty of other agaves in the area.

Here's the report I received from Logan once the testing was complete...

Depending on how you're reading this you should be able to click on the image to enlarge the report if you want, but here's the important part: "Sequencing did not reveal any pathogenic bacteria but did confirm the presence of the fungus Fusarium solani (see second and third photos), one of the causal agents of the disease agave wilt. Most fungi and bacteria that kill agave enter the crown of the plant through agave snout weevil wounds, but there were no signs of insects or insect damage on the sample. F. solani is soil-borne and may have infected this plant through the roots, causing both root and crown rot."

And then there's the final section of the report, the recommendations, which warns...

.

.

.

.

.

Oops

Ya. I just couldn't handle the bare spot and even before Logan had offered to do the testing I'd mentally filled it with one of my Agave ovatifolia in waiting (the one I labeled with "This poor guy would love to get in the ground" in this post). Normally I would never plant an agave in September (wanting to give them time to get established before winter), but I'd started to hate the look of this one in its container, and it was so totally rootbound that I rationalized that putting it in the ground was the humane thing to do. 

So now that I know there's an issue in the soil I'm looking at the other agaves nearby, like this NoID...

And this little Agave parryi ssp. huachucensis 'Excelsior'.

See what I mean by little? Such a slow grower. I wonder if they'll be okay? They've been in the ground quite awhile now.

When planting the new agave I also squeezed in a dryland fern, Cheilanthes sieberi, on the left. Why not!?

I've really been loving how the new Agave ovatifolia picks up the afternoon sunlight, however that warm fuzzy feeling is tempered by the fact I now know I've sentenced it to death. I wonder how long it will look good? 

Oh, that reminds me, the title of this post! Logan said that Bartlett's new molecular diagnostician is going to keep DNA from my agave's Fusarium cultures as positive controls for future testing. You guys... my agave died for science!!!

Okay, let's end this post with a happy agave update. Remember these ugly things? No? Last January I stopped to photograph a hellstrip planting in San Diego (here) which included these sad Agave attenuata bulbils...

I rescued a couple that were on the ground, and brought them home (that's Andrew holding them for my haul post).

Look at them now! Or rather last week when they were still outside, now they're in the basement—we had a low of 39F two nights in a row! Anyway, they've grown so much, I've never had an agave pup grow so fast. Yay! 

To receive alerts of new danger garden posts by email, subscribe here. Please note: these are sent from a third party, their annoying ads are beyond my control. 

All material © 2009-2025 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.