White fungus in soil?

 When transplanting some pot plants I've noticed that there is a fluffy white
fungus type of material on the decomposing matter in the soil. The plants
themselves haven't been very healthy and I wondered if the white stuff was
in some way responsible for the poor health and very limited growth of the
plant?

I've put the old soil to one side in the hope that I will be able to reuse
it come next spring. I guess I am hoping that the fungus will die off as it
has no moisture now.

Does anyone know what this might be and if it's a problem, how to remedy it?

 

There are many fungi in the normal microbes in healthy soil.  Most of them
are useful in that they are part of the natural cycle of breaking down dead
organic matter so that it can be reused.  Some are harmful to living plants
and so not desirable.  Unless you can get a friendly mycologist to take a
look you are unlikely to be able to tell the difference, even a trained
person might not be able to do it by inspection.  Unless you have reason to
believe you have harmful fungi I wouldn't worry about it.

David

 

Was it potting mix?  You often get fungi growing on the little bits of pine
bark in potting mix.

Your plants might have grown poorly because the fungus was a baddie, but it's
more likely that they had too little/too much fertiliser or water.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

 

It could be any number of things ... but healthy soils contain fungi and it
can be beneficial as well so unless the plants were showing signs of fungal
attack  maybe not??

Also on a side note .... beware white fungi - I learnt the hard way that
sometimes what looks like fungi on first glance is actually Funnel Web web.
(But that was this Qlder on a uni field trip to NSW and having to take
detritious samples and not knowing much about arachnids at the time;)
Amanda

 FlowerGirl wrote:

If the material was mushroom compost its quite likely leftover mushroom
spores.
It could also be  too alkaline?
That causes deficiencies in the soil and could cause the symptoms you
write of....
Also there could have been too much artificial (liquid) fertiliser
added, which shows up as salts on the surface mainly.
Plunging the pots into water can remove some the excess. And is also a
quick way of reviving dried out plants....
A soil test kit for testing alkaline or acidity would be part of the
answer. Otherwise repotting the plants in known quality mix would solve
the problem,  usually.
If theyre annuals I would get the good stuff in future...