Pythium

Garden Problems

Pythium are fungi like organisms that cause root rot disease causing plants to wilt and die. It can infect lawn grasses and cause brown patches.

Identify the problem
- Plants are stunted.
- Root tips are brown and dead (similar to other root rot diseases)
- Plants wilt at mid-day and may recover at night.
- Plants yellow and die.
- Brown tissue on the outer portion of the root easily pulls off leaving a strand of vascular tissue exposed.
- Pythium blight in lawns shows as irregular brown or black patches often with grey/white cottony mould around the edges of the patches.
How to solve the problem
- Control weeds as they can be a reservoir of infection.
- Remove and burn dead infected plants.
- Spray with PLANThealth Buxus Blight Buster or Fungus Control every 10-14 days. Spray the foliage as well as the soil around plants to be protected. It will kill root root disease fungi in soil and be drawn into plant to protect further from disease.
Did you know?
- Phytophthora and Pythium fungi like pathogenic species that can cause die back in many different plants and are pests of major economic importance. It was one of this group of fungi that caused the great potato famine in Ireland. It is also a Phytopthora that is causing Kauri dieback and damaging and killing many of the iconic trees of the North Island of New Zealand.