pineapple pest

[kalianna]

I've grown pineapple for many years and have never seen anything attack them but I noticed some of my half-grown fruits seemed to be turning brown.  Then I noticed the lack of green crowns on those same plants.  Does anyone know what this is or what to do about it?  I doused them in neem oil as a temporary solution.  I don't think they'll recover however.

[terracore]

If there isn't an instance of nutrient deficiency, pest damage, or over/under watering my first guess is persistent herbicide damage. Did you happen to use any mulch? Straw? Hay? Compost? Manure? These are all vectors of persistent herbicides like Milestone / Grazon.

Pineapples aren't good at absorbing nutrients from the soil and are usually foliar fertilized. You didn't mention how they were getting fed but that is something to consider.

[kalianna]

    I donʻt think it was herbicide.  I have two pineapple patches a couple hundred feet apart and had about 1/3 of the plants with this deformity in each patch.  i decided to wait to see how this played out to post again.  Now itʻs harvest time and this is what I ended up with.  Thereʻs no green top but seemingly normal keiki coming out of the bottom.

---

    Hereʻs the fruit as it came from the plant.

[Punatang]

Kalianna we are harvesting mad pineapples at the moment and I've never seen a single one like that.  I know you don't like irritating advice.  But...LOL, I can't stress enough how strongly we believe in foliar feeding vermi-compost tea.  We spray everything.  Hell we spray each other.  LOL  It's a darn miracle.  You can literally see how much your plants love an evening spray, by the next morning.  The worms are fun too.  I can't say the tea will prevent that particular issue but I would not be surprised.  I can promise it will radically improve your plants and your soil (which is what we are really growing here in Puna).  Fingers crossed that this is received well LOL.  Good luck with it.

[kalianna]

Iʻve got good, fertilized soil, have grown pineapple for many years and never had this problem. Other plants in these areas are doing fine. I have way too much stuff to be foliar feeding without knowing what Iʻm treating for but thanks for the advice, not at all irritating. Donʻt worry, I only bite bickerers. :-)

[Punatang]

I hear you and I understand that thought process.  However, it's about microbial life which affects nutrient uptake and a thousand other things some of which we don't even know about, yet.  So, while you may have given 100% of everything your pineapples need,  they may not be able to take it up (uptake) due to poor soil micro-biology. That can vary from one square foot to another and can certainly vary between plant species.  You can spend years going down this rabbit hole and I sincerely hope you do.  In the meantime though, get some red wiggler worms,  feed them your scraps, make some compost tea and spray your plants, soil, compost pile.  You'll be glad you did.  I guarantee it.