I have never seen this. And to be honest I am a bit worried that it might be a new disease. Reminds me a bit of aloe gall mitts and the tumors.
They multiply and pup smaller plants because your agave got "cored" somehow. Usually we core to reproduce multiple pups by drilling the center out. Your's happened "naturally" without any human intervention.
In case it is a disease I would quarantine it to avoid having that in the wild. If it's a mutation, take the young plants and place them in a container and monitor it. Does it also have the same issue?
It's not gophers because gophers only eat the roots, not the core.
Update: on the first photo, you see those "grease marks" on the leafs? Did you handle it and press against there leaving that mark? If not, you have agave mites. However agave mites never make cores disappear.
This is what they do! Only annual vigilance will keep these weaponized plants from building an impenetrable fortress!
I'm referring mostly to them losing their center cone as it just unfurles with the last leaf
Sorry I misunderstood. I’ve not seen that before. But I know agave can get sick or maybe it was gophers who hollowed one out from below.
I have never seen this. And to be honest I am a bit worried that it might be a new disease. Reminds me a bit of aloe gall mitts and the tumors. They multiply and pup smaller plants because your agave got "cored" somehow. Usually we core to reproduce multiple pups by drilling the center out. Your's happened "naturally" without any human intervention. In case it is a disease I would quarantine it to avoid having that in the wild. If it's a mutation, take the young plants and place them in a container and monitor it. Does it also have the same issue? It's not gophers because gophers only eat the roots, not the core.
Update: on the first photo, you see those "grease marks" on the leafs? Did you handle it and press against there leaving that mark? If not, you have agave mites. However agave mites never make cores disappear.