# Is root rot contagious?



## papheteer (Aug 18, 2013)

I recently repotted a delenatii with rotted roots. While repotting i wasn't careful and i touched the whole bag of media. My question i guess is can root rot be passed thru contaminated media? Should I throw the whole bag? Thanks!!


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## Stone (Aug 18, 2013)

Yes it can BUT root rotting fungi like pithium and phytophthora are water bourne and pretty much everywhere. They are probably present in just about every pot in our collection just waiting for the opportunity to attack but the good news is they are usually kept in check by bacteria which use them as food and keep thier numbers down to a safe level. Your delenatii was attacked because of a set of conditions suited to the rotters: week/damaged roots for some reason like high EC or too dry or too cold or too wet resulting in a plant with low immunity. So I would not worry about the disease spreading if the other plants and media are in top condition. They should not be affected. Sometimes root rot is not a specific fungal disease but simply bacteria eating dead root parts. I think its important to have a steady calcium supply arriving at the roots too.


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## Erythrone (Aug 20, 2013)

Stone said:


> Yes it can BUT root rotting fungi like pithium and phytophthora are water bourne and pretty much everywhere. They are probably present in just about every pot in our collection just waiting for the opportunity to attack but the good news is they are usually kept in check by bacteria which use them as food and keep thier numbers down to a safe level. Your delenatii was attacked because of a set of conditions suited to the rotters: week/damaged roots for some reason like high EC or too dry or too cold or too wet resulting in a plant with low immunity. So I would not worry about the disease spreading if the other plants and media are in top condition. They should not be affected. Sometimes root rot is not a specific fungal disease but simply bacteria eating dead root parts. I think its important to have a steady calcium supply arriving at the roots too.




Very interesting Stone!!! What you wrote confirms what I thought. Root rot usually appears because of cultural problems...


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## papheteer (Aug 20, 2013)

Stone said:


> Yes it can BUT root rotting fungi like pithium and phytophthora are water bourne and pretty much everywhere. They are probably present in just about every pot in our collection just waiting for the opportunity to attack but the good news is they are usually kept in check by bacteria which use them as food and keep thier numbers down to a safe level. Your delenatii was attacked because of a set of conditions suited to the rotters: week/damaged roots for some reason like high EC or too dry or too cold or too wet resulting in a plant with low immunity. So I would not worry about the disease spreading if the other plants and media are in top condition. They should not be affected. Sometimes root rot is not a specific fungal disease but simply bacteria eating dead root parts. I think its important to have a steady calcium supply arriving at the roots too.



Makes perfect sense! Thank you very much!


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