Bright yellow stuff growing in my soil

[Heywood]

2 days ago this wasn't there.
I just happened to catch it today and snapped a few pics.
Anyone know what this is? It is only showing in one of the solo cups.
Seedlings have only been above soil for 14 days.

I am growing in FF Happy Frog. ammended a bit with worm castings when I dropped the germinated seeds in.
This is under a 6500K grow light. Temp is 73f and RH is 55 - 60.
Water is RO and PH'd to 6.4.
Last watering was 5 days ago with some added liquid kelp/fish fert lightly mixed in with the water.
I used that kelp/fish fert all through my last grow with no issues.

Anyway, Anybody got any educated guesses?
Scrape it out and keep on trucking?

 

[ritoMox]

2 days ago this wasn't there.
I just happened to catch it today and snapped a few pics.
Anyone know what this is? It is only showing in one of the solo cups.
Seedlings have only been above soil for 14 days.

I am growing in FF Happy Frog. ammended a bit with worm castings when I dropped the germinated seeds in.
This is under a 6500K grow light. Temp is 73f and RH is 55 - 60.
Water is RO and PH'd to 6.4.
Last watering was 5 days ago with some added liquid kelp/fish fert lightly mixed in with the water.
I used that kelp/fish fert all through my last grow with no issues.

Anyway, Anybody got any educated guesses?
Scrape it out and keep on trucking?

View attachment 1271983

View attachment 1271984

Mushroom pins. Not sure what kind.

 

[Heywood]

Hmmm. Mushrooms are a sign of a healthy environment, yes?

I'm tempted to leave them alone now.

 

[ritoMox]

Hmmm. Mushrooms are a sign of a healthy environment, yes?

I'm tempted to leave them alone now.

I'd find out what kind first. They're also sucking up nutes. You'd have to toss the whole thing if you did. Not familiar with growing bud and actual mushrooms together. Who knows, they might abort.

 

[mysticepipedon]

I've never seen a fungus of this color, but I've had mushrooms grow in pots and it did not seem to have any affect on plant growth.

 

[TomH]

I'm going to guess it's probably this:
Leucocoprinus birnbaumii
Toxic to eat, won't hurt your plants, indicates your soil is good, but too moist.
It might also (unlikely) be Fuligo septica, but I doubt it.

 

[Heywood]

Thanks for all the input, fellas!

Not much I can do about the soil being "too moist" as they have only been saturated with water once so far
I will direct a fan on low, over top of them to try and help keep the surface a bit more dry.

I've surgically scraped the top ½" layer of soil off and replaced it with fresh FFHF.
If the fungus comes back I'll either just trash that plant or take it out of the solo cup completely and shake all the soil off and transplant it into fresh soil.
That seedling is growing the strongest out of all 5 that I popped.

I think you are right, @TomH ... they more resembled Leucocoprinus birnbaumii than Fuligo septica.

 

[ritoMox]

Thanks for all the input, fellas!

Not much I can do about the soil being "too moist" as they have only been saturated with water once so far
I will direct a fan on low, over top of them to try and help keep the surface a bit more dry.

I've surgically scraped the top ½" layer of soil off and replaced it with fresh FFHF.
If the fungus comes back I'll either just trash that plant or take it out of the solo cup completely and shake all the soil off and transplant it into fresh soil.
That seedling is growing the strongest out of all 5 that I popped.

I think you are right, @TomH ... they more resembled Leucocoprinus birnbaumii than Fuligo septica.

Yeah, that fungus is all through the soil. Could be in the others, too. FYI, if you let those mushrooms mature and open up, you'll have spores everywhere and you'll play hell getting it out of your grow room. Translation, every time you grow with soil in that room you will get mushrooms. So if you don't want them, I'd suggest putting them outside and starting over with a different soil, and sterilizing your grow room.

 

[Moe.Red]

Scrape it out and keep on trucking?

So those are fruiting bodies - mushrooms. They only show up when you have a colony of mycelium that support them. That means there is a good amount of growth you cannot see in the soil.

I cannot confirm what they are.

They have not reached maturity yet and if you scrape them off now, you will not get spores, but more will likely come up. As the food source dries up they will too. Eventually.

In general, if you know what it is and it is harmless, ok to let them go. Since you are not sure, I'd probably take evasive action.

 

[Heywood]

Again thanks for the follow-ups.

I did take the affected plant outside and as mentioned. scraped off a good layer.
I'm sure I got to it before they matured and had caps, so no spores were blown about in the grow room.

Also as mentioned, if they show back up, I will discard that plant.

I believe you that it may be throughout that bag of Fox Farms soil, but if that's the case, then there are probably hundreds of bags of affected soil from that batch.
I'm not just going to toss these 5 plants out though... overall that fungus is not harmful as long as it is not ingested.

I've had that bag of soil (in my garage) for probably 5 or 6 months. I will get a new bag though for when I up-pot though.

 

[TomH]

Again thanks for the follow-ups.

I did take the affected plant outside and as mentioned. scraped off a good layer.
I'm sure I got to it before they matured and had caps, so no spores were blown about in the grow room.

Also as mentioned, if they show back up, I will discard that plant.

I believe you that it may be throughout that bag of Fox Farms soil, but if that's the case, then there are probably hundreds of bags of affected soil from that batch.
I'm not just going to toss these 5 plants out though... overall that fungus is not harmful as long as it is not ingested.

I've had that bag of soil (in my garage) for probably 5 or 6 months. I will get a new bag though for when I up-pot though.

I recently purchased two bags of FFOF dirt. Both are horribly infected with fungus gnats (or some other gnat), right out of the bag.
I've been battling those little bastards for my entire grow.
Finally poured desert sand on the tops of each container, tell the gnats gbye!

But I agree, that soil has some serious issues.

 

[Heywood]

Ok... you guys are right.

Upon closer inspection, each of the 5 solo cups has this fungus in it to some degree.

So I am thinking if I go get a new bag of soil, I can pull these existing seedlings out of their cups and gently rinse all the old soil/fungus off of the stem/roots... then replant into new soil and new cups. I was thinking I can use RO water in an irrigation syringe to thoroughly rinse them.

Is that going to be a useless effort?

Constructive thoughts?

 

[Shaded_One]

Ok... you guys are right.

Upon closer inspection, each of the 5 solo cups has this fungus in it to some degree.

So I am thinking if I go get a new bag of soil, I can pull these existing seedlings out of their cups and gently rinse all the old soil/fungus off of the stem/roots... then replant into new soil and new cups. I was thinking I can use RO water in an irrigation syringe to thoroughly rinse them.

Is that going to be a useless effort?

Constructive thoughts?

I will summon the circle of wizards omg they have a freakin gandalf emoji

 

[Heywood]

I will summon the circle of wizards omg they have a freakin gandalf emoji

Yeah but if you don't come back with a reasonable solution, you can't use it anymore.

 

[Moe.Red]

The only thing I can think of is to sterilize the soil before you repot. This defeats some of the reason to use the soil in the first place, but that is the only way I can think of to get rid of mycelium.

You could use an insta pot if you have one. If not, you are hoping the new bag is good.

Unlike pollen, spores do not become inert with water. But if you physically wash it all off, I think you will be good. It's as good a plan as any.

Or just switch to hydro (only partially kidding)

 

[Heywood]

The only thing I can think of is to sterilize the soil before you repot. This defeats some of the reason to use the soil in the first place, but that is the only way I can think of to get rid of mycelium.

You could use an insta pot if you have one. If not, you are hoping the new bag is good.

Unlike pollen, spores do not become inert with water. But if you physically wash it all off, I think you will be good. It's as good a plan as any.

Or just switch to hydro (only partially kidding)

Thanks for your thoughts, Moe.
No hydro for me. I enjoy the leisurely pace of soil growing.

Tomorrow I'll try getting the plants out of their current soil and rinsing them, then put them in new soil and cups.
It will be a good learning exercise.
If it works, great. If not... guess I am popping more seeds.

 

[Heywood]

OK. Operation This Sucks has been completed.

I ditched the affected FoxFarms soil and got fresh coco based soil that I have used in the past - Empire Builder.
I pulled all the seedlings out of their bad soil and used an irrigation syringe as a mini high-pressure washer and rinsed the stems and roots as best I could.
While I didn't practice brain-surgery sterilization and handling procedures,.. I gave it a logical/practical approach.

It is possible that some of that fungus may have gotten past the rinsing procedure. Time will tell.

 

[Shaded_One]

OK. Operation This Sucks has been completed.

I ditched the affected FoxFarms soil and got fresh coco based soil that I have used in the past - Empire Builder.
I pulled all the seedlings out of their bad soil and used an irrigation syringe as a mini high-pressure washer and rinsed the stems and roots as best I could.
While I didn't practice brain-surgery sterilization and handling procedures,.. I gave it a logical/practical approach.

It is possible that some of that fungus may have gotten past the rinsing procedure. Time will tell.

Excellent work dogman.

 

[ritoMox]

It is possible that some of that fungus may have gotten past the rinsing procedure. Time will tell.

Possibly. Mycelium is tenacious.

 

[Moe.Red]

OK. Operation This Sucks has been completed.

I ditched the affected FoxFarms soil and got fresh coco based soil that I have used in the past - Empire Builder.
I pulled all the seedlings out of their bad soil and used an irrigation syringe as a mini high-pressure washer and rinsed the stems and roots as best I could.
While I didn't practice brain-surgery sterilization and handling procedures,.. I gave it a logical/practical approach.

It is possible that some of that fungus may have gotten past the rinsing procedure. Time will tell.

Chances are moving to coco you will starve anything that's left.

Mycelium are very targeted eaters. You don't see them jumping food sources, like most gourmet edible mushrooms are wood eaters, and others eat what's in soil or compost or cow paddies. You won't find oysters growing on horse shit. Since you started with soil and moved to a more woody - non nutritious media, whatever came over on your freshly bathed plants probably will not last.