Mold? Fungus? Pictures!

Discussion in 'Garden Pest Management and Identification' started by plantchick, May 7, 2005.

  1. plantchick

    plantchick Member

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    Location:
    West End, Vancouver
    Hi there,

    I have alot of plants these pics are of 2 different plants..
    one small one (i have no idea what it is has fungus? ) on top of the soil and the other has before as well alot of the time its bright yellow. i would usually just use a spoon and pick of the top layer.
    so now my bigger one dosnt have mold or anything but LOOK at the leaves! i have no idea what is causing this! there seems to be new sprouts though.

    if someone can give the their opinion on these 2 it would help SO much!
    thanks!
     

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  2. magicbazooka

    magicbazooka New Member

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    portland, OR
    I believe those are a form of mites. I have them on a few of my houseplants aswell. I think the most common remedy is an oil supplement. They don't seem to completely destroy the plants thankfully as I've seen them off and on in the same plant for over a year now, but they do spread to other plants and hinder nutrient uptake.
     
  3. Your reply appeared to cover the mite(s) issue, however it did not address the white substance in the LEFT photo. I, too have this and would like to determine what it is. It is currently on the soil under an Oak tree.
     
  4. cramapple

    cramapple Member

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    The stuff on the left is fungus. Some sort of basidiomycete. Those are the wood rotters and you have a ton of dead wood in that soil. It presents no problem to your live plants. Scooping it out with a spoon works just fine but you'll never get rid of it completley as long as you have all that dead wood in there. You could just switch the soil you use if the scooping becomes to big of a pain. The stuff on the right doesn't look like mites to me. Usually mites will hang out along the mid-rib and the viens. This stuff is distinctly inter-vienal. Also, you can see nearly identical symptoms along the edges and tips of most of the leaves on that one branch progressing inward. The unifiormity of the symptoms suggest a nutrient deficiancy or water deficiency (my money is on water) because, unlike a pest or disease, a lack of something that the plant needs often hits the entire plant in the same way at the same time. But, it is just that one branch. That has me thinking that something is blocking the vascular tissue there. So, even though you water it and put nutrients in the soil for it, that stuff just doesn't get transported like it should. I would bet that if you cut off the unhealthy branch and looked at the xylem / phloem in cross-section, you would find browning or yellowing. At that point, to get a working I.D. on what the problem is you would have do a litte research on which vascular diseases (fungal or bacterial) attack that species of plant. Then you figure out which ones are present in your part of the world. Then you would have a pretty good idea of what the problem is. To get an actual positive I.D. you would have to culture out the pathogen and I.D. fruiting bodies or spores if fungal, or bacterial spores. (diseases are just a pain like that).
     

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