Fuzzy White Mold

[Decado]

I'll get a picture of the varieties in this mixture later, too many to type out. But I'm positive it is the mycorrhizae I'm seeing as like I said it showed up in all my other potted plants after I inoculated.

[applestar]

Right. I'm agreeing with you. They may not be detrimental to your plants if they are all saprotrophic fungi that only feed on dead organic matter and that form beneficial symbiotic relationships with living plants (as that seems to be the working definition of mycorrhizae)

[Toil]

Apple, that is not at all the definition working or otherwise of mycorrhizae. We are talking about endomycorrhizal fungi that do not exist without plants. Period. They get food from plants, and when the plant dies, they die. Not to mention, at the seedling stage we are not talking about visible mass, and the fungus is not anywhere close to mature enough to afford a fruiting body, which in the case of endomycorrhizal fungi is not above ground anyway.

Unless we are talking trees we are not talking anything above ground, and in no cases are we talking above ground hyphae , which would make no sense since the fungus trades nutrients for food. The nutrients are chemically locked up, and in exchange for fetching them the fungus gets paid. What you suggest is the equivalent of a lichen having a divorce.

These guys are specialists, not opportunists. As far as I know they are not decomposers like the mold the poster is seeing, which would go away with adequate light and ventilation. Take that mold seriously. It is an early warning. Maybe you will get away with it, but maybe not. Light and air won't hurt, damping off will. And you have great conditions for damping off if you have mold.

If you want to see them, you will need a scope and some slides.

[Decado]

Explain to me how I suddenly got mold in several potted plants in dry warm areas that have been there years (with no mold on them ever) after applying the compost tea with mycorrhizae in it then?

[rainbowgardener]

Here's what I said on the previous page:

It seems coincidental, but I don't think the original fuzzy white mold under discussion is associated with the innoculant. Maybe the mold spores were in the compost tea, or the addition of the compost tea made everything moist enough to favor the mold.


You have confounded variables... happens a lot in science!

[Toil]

Can you get in there with a spoon as I suggested so we can see where the filaments lead?

My first guess is you got mold the same way everyone gets mold. From mold spores, moisture, and inadequate light and ventilation. You are reporting the opposite, so we have a puzzle.

[applestar]

OK, don't know how to respond to that...
First, I was thinking out loud, rather than thinking it out then posting, so it's very possible I got something wrong. I was also plugging some ideas together, so it's possible you misunderstood what I said... My statement might have been better punctuated....

You said:

We are talking about endomycorrhizal fungi that do not exist without plants. Period. They get food from plants, and when the plant dies, they die.

and I said:

... that form beneficial symbiotic relationships with living plants (as that seems to be the working definition of mycorrhizae)

Don't these two statements sound similar? Note that when I underlined the "and" I meant if they "also" etc. above, then all the better. I didn't mean to imply that "saprotrophic fungi that only feed on dead organic matter" and mycorrhizae were one and the same. I don't know if they are, you said they aren't. I'll accept that. Yeah, now that I look at it, it's confusing.

As for the white furry thing -- I don't know why it has to be mold. Seriously, if you look at all my oyster mushroom and shiitake hyphae/mycelium growing on agar media, sawdust, and woodchip substrates, they're all furry and white. Most of them are in my bedroom right now. So, seeing them day in and day out, you tell me white and furry growing in mycorrhiza inoculated soil and I automatically think "mushrooms!" -- rather than mold.

I don't know where decado got his stuff, but Fungi Perfecti sells mycorrhizal products. I kind of assumed that at least some of them are a by-product of mushroom cultivation (like the way they collect BAGS of spores from the filtration system and now sell spored oils.), though I have no basis for that assumption. I mentioned elsewhere the P. Stamet's Brussels Sprout bed inoculated with H. ulmarius research that boosted yield and size, as well as how P. eryngii has symbiotic relationship to carrot family plants.

Also, my TP tube-as-bottomless tall/narrow pots have started growing mold-like patches after I watered them with spent oyster mushroom substrate extract. It might be mold, it might not. I've been watering with AACT to increase competition and the patches haven't grown any bigger though they haven't disappeared entirely. These have onion seedlings in them, and they looked a little stressed initially, but now they are looking happier. As long as the cardboard tubes are getting broken down, I don't really care what's doing it.

If I'm still wrong, then I guess I'll just have to finish reading that book and try to catch up.

[Toil]

I'm not sure how they are cultured but I hear it is not easy.

This is definitely an obligatory relationship, like the fungus of a lichen.

Mold is just a catch all I think, and not a class of fungi. I don't consider white mold to be a pest. But you know way more about mushrooms than I.

I do know that conditions leading to visible fungi on the surface are not good for seedlings.

[Sage Hermit]

Post a pic.