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This white stuff started to show up on my plants. I am worried it might be mold and could not be so great for the air in my bedroom. enter image description here

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stephanlindauer
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1 Answers1

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It's quite hard to tell from the photographs - in the top one, there may be some mould growing towards the bottom, right hand side, and the soil in that pot does look quite wet. As for the second photograph, it's not quite in focus, and it has more the look of salt deposits from using hard tapwater to water with than mould.

If you think you're reacting to spores from the mould, then move the plants elsewhere, but we all breath in about 40 fungal spores with every breath we take when outdoors, less indoors usually, unless the windows are open, and no harm comes of this. Alternatively, if the plant in the top picture doesn't require to be sitting in very wet compost, reduce your watering, which will discourage the mould or fungal growth. That might be difficult - from the picture, it appears the pot is too full with soil (right to the brim) and you have it in an outer pot, in which you presumably pour water, since water will just run off the top from round the plant otherwise. A larger pot, filled only to half an inch from the top would help with that, as would ensuring the outer pot is emptied 30 minutes after you've watered. Air circulation will help too - if your bedroom has no airflow, and moisture is present (as in that soil) that will encourage fungal/mould growth.

Bamboo
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  • I concur about the bottom picture *looking* like it has lots of mineral deposits, although the source could potentially be from an over-application of a mineral supplement. I don't think it looks like mold on the soil: It looks more like moss. – Brōtsyorfuzthrāx Dec 11 '15 at 12:58
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    Moss is green - what I'm seeing in the top picture is white growth, so not moss, if it is a growth and not just salts... – Bamboo Dec 11 '15 at 13:08
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    This same thing was happening to my basil plants, I switched to a pot that had better drainage, scrapped of the white fuzzy stuff went away, and it never came back. – Tom Dec 11 '15 at 15:09
  • @Bamboo I wasn't referring to that. – Brōtsyorfuzthrāx Dec 12 '15 at 10:54
  • @Bamboo You said, "we all breath in about 40 fungal spores with every breath we take when outdoors" Do you have any type of citation for that? I have searched for quite awhile on google and can't find anything to support that statement. TIA. – Citizen Jan 03 '16 at 03:38
  • @Citizen - yes - an educational programme called 'The Magic of Mushrooms' put out by the BBC. Absolutely fascinating, full of stuff about fungi I had no idea about - did you know you can make what looks like polystyrene (styrofoam?) packaging which is biodegradable from a particular mushroom mycelium, and it is, in fact, being made already in the States. And that there's a mushroom which will grow on contaminated sites, leaving the area clean and ready for use without the need for decontamination by humans... I think it was oyster mushrooms, but would need to watch it again to be sure. – Bamboo Jan 03 '16 at 11:58
  • Typical Levels of Airborne Fungal Spores in Houses Without Obvious Moisture Problems During a Rainy Season in Florida, USA reports 2,355 spores/m3 outside in Florida. Tidal volume is an average 500mls, so that's 0.6 spores per breath by my calculations. – Graham Chiu Jan 29 '16 at 19:00
  • Oops, 1.2 spores per breath – Graham Chiu Jan 29 '16 at 19:03
  • No oops about it, not according to the reference I gave - but 40 is only an approximation, and applies particularly to outdoors and in green or wooded areas. – Bamboo Jan 30 '16 at 12:11