I have some problematic "roots" in my soil. Roots are developing in the soil attached to nothing. I would appreciate some answers if anybody knows what it is and how it can be treated. The picture is of soil i got last fall and left under the tarp. Thank you in advance.
You can sift through the soil and not find any seeds, bulbs or anything?
Could this be a fungus rather than a plant?
Hi Diana, This soil was delivered from a garden center and left on the tarp (and covered with another one) over winter. I planted some trees last year and checked the soil around them. This "monster"has developed into a thick mat of these "roots" and I almost could not put my shovel through it. None of these trees look very happy.
Because there was nothing in the soil (and it looked really good) when it was delivered I almost believe that it is some kind of fungus...but what? and is there a way to eliminate it? It is really aggressive. (There some small composted wood chips in it)
Thanks for your note.
If it is almost impossible to break up, try a rototiller.
Spread it out as thin as possible (less than a few inches) and expose it to the sun. Dry and exposure will kill most fungi.
Rake it every few days to keep turning it over and exposing new surfaces to the sun, especially if you had to spread it thicker.
Most fungi live on dead matter, that is, stuff that was once alive, like the composting wood chips you describe.
Many fungi develop a root-like system called hyphae that spread into the soil. That is what this sounds like.
The soil is hard to work because the fungus is removing the composting wood chips and other nutrients, and leaving the soil sterile, so even the other beneficial microorganisms die off.
Once you have spread out the soil, and killed off most of this aggressive fungi try this:
Mix the soil with some compost, perhaps 50/50. Use it in some containers. Add some fertilizer. See if some easy to grow plants (perhaps summer annuals) will grow in it.
Thanks again Diaana_K.
That is the most logical explanation I have to this day. As I know that these are not roots to any plant life .I just will have to decide what I will do to all the trees I planted in this soil. They are all suffering.
Thanks again
Just another picture . This is how it starts...there are thousands in the soil and this is what it develops into and chokes the roots of my trees.
Those really do look like roots, not fungi.
Can you sift them out of the soil? Do they come back?
To help the trees, try this:
Rake through the top of the soil near the trees. Do not disturb the tree roots, but remove any of this stuff you find.
Fertilize with a slow release fertilizer like Osmocote. Not an organic material that might feed fungi.
Deep soak as needed. If the water is not penetrating the mass of soil and roots, add 1 tablespoon of dish washing liquid (for hand washing dishes) per gallon of water. Water each tree with 1 gallon of this mix, then follow up with a deep soaking with no more added detergent.
Mulch with a material that is resistant to decay, perhaps bark chips from a conifer. Redwood would be my choice.
Thanks Diana-K,
I will try what you are recommending. My question would be ....what are these roots of ? When I dig the hole these roots are not there. Can roots (of any plant) grow and develop from a another piece of root not attached to any other plant life? What feeds them , how this mass survive? As you can see , I am really puzzled by this. Now I am more concerned about the many plantings I did( than the soil in the pile) as they all seem to struggle.
Thanks again for all your suggestions I really appreciate them.
I also am quite puzzled.
True roots of real plants will grow quite a long distance from the original plant, and can be quite dense, even far away from the plant. But there is ALWAYS a plant SOMEWHERE near enough to figure out that is where the roots are coming from.
Seeds start growing by growing the root. THEN they grow the stem and leaves. But the roots will not form a giant, wide spreading mass until well after the stem and leaves grow. The seed may start a pretty serious tap root, or start on a diffuse root system surprisingly fast, but ALWAYS the stem and leaves follow quite soon.
Plants that grow ONLY below ground are plants that do not photosynthesize. In other words, fungi, and certain parasitic plants. But even the plant parasites will grow above ground, too, when they flower. They are not usually very big plants, either. Again, not a wide spreading mass of roots like you are seeing. Fungi are my best guess for what you are seeing, but those tissues look too firm, too much like woody roots. Still, wide spreading, in organic matter-soil blend, damp, no above-soil portions seen so far, nothing green, no other plant matter (seeds, twigs) attached to the 'roots'. Sure sounds like a fungus! They get their energy from decomposing the organic compost that is blended with the soil.
If there were pruned pieces of root or stem from a plant that photosynthesizes, it might grow more roots for a short time, but will grow stem and leaves pretty soon. Sort of like rooting a house plant from a bare stick. The roots can grow pretty dense, but the plant also needs the energy from photosynthesis, and will not stay a bare stick for long. If this is what is happening, I would expect you to be seeing the top growth of whatever it is, not just a mass of roots.
Bulbs and similar structures can stay dormant for a while, and may grow some roots while the top is dormant, but you would see the bulb, or parts of it when you rake through the soil, and the roots may be fat and juicy, but they are never woody.
I am running out of ideas, and would appreciate it if you ever do figure it out, post so we will all know what it was.
Have you contacted the garden center that delivered the soil? I would take one of the clumps back to them.
I am having a somewhat similar problem. I noticed most of the strawberries in my 1500 sq foot strawberry patch died and then there were large patches in my beds of lilies and day lilies that were bare except for hosta plants that had grown up in those places. At first I thought the voles had eaten the roots but I started digging and the soil was thick with matted roots which were connected to the hosta plants. It appeared as if the 'hosta' plants put out runners that were rapidly propagating hundreds of hosta plants that got really big really fast taking over the garden. The runners turned into huge roots (see photo). They would then send up runners where other plants were growing. They seemed to prefer irises, day lilies, strawberries, anything with tuberous roots under the soil. The runners would then choke off and kill these plants. Thus the bald spots in my normally lush, verdant garden. I tried pulling out the 'hostas' and they just snapped off like tinkertoys but leaving the masses of roots underneath (see photo). The hosta leaves had grown so quickly they had holes in them like something that has been cloned too many times. And the flowers also came early and seemed oddly mildly distorted. I checked the rest of my garden and found these roots in many places. As I tried to save some of the plants by teasing them out of the choking root, I found that I was often led to a small wood chip--as if the wood chip were the source of this mutant cloning/hosta/root problem. I remembered that we got mulch 2 years ago from the dump where they reprocess people's branches and leaves. I am thinking now that perhaps the woodchips were contaminated with something that turned the hostas into killer hostas but not true hostas anymore.. I know this sounds crazy but check out the photos. Any ideas anyone?
I can't figure out how to upload more images.
An example of the hostas which have gotten huge, the odd 'hosta' roots, the holes in the hosta leaves and the masses of roots. Help!!
Processed compost from other peoples' dumped green waste...
Could there have been some herbicide in there? Maybe.
Some herbicide creates distorted growth (sort of like what you are seeing in Hosta-root-mutant picture #2).
I have NO idea what the roots would be that are growing on their own, presumably introduced with the compost. Like the OP, these are too large, too thick to be fungi.
No top growth (from either poster) is the puzzling part- If they are roots, where are the stems and leaves???
klahanie,
Definetly roots.
Either came from:
1. Soil obtained from garden center.
2. Were in the native soil already.
3. Have come from plants nearby.
4. Roots from your recently planted trees.
If the soil came from the garden center I would go back and find out what was growing in the soil previously. Roots can survive up to a year without much top growth and can increase in size and mass but the others are corrent in due time there would have to be some vivible green growth. Since it appears there is no top groth it is not likely #1 is the cause unless the soil was obtained within the last year.
What was growing in this area previously?
What do you have growing nearby with 20 feet? Any grapes? Raspberries or other caneberries or perrenials?
pfemd,
It is likely the mulch or wood chips you obtained was contaminated with either a residual herbicide or was from a type of shrub or tree that has allelopathic natural growth inhibiting chemicals in it. One thing to also remember is that wood chip or any organic matter decomposition is performed by hundreds of millions of microbes which requires lots of moisture as well as nitrogen. Everyone thinks adding organic matter(OM) to a soil provides nitrogen and it does over the long run, but adding some nitrogen from an inorganic fertilizer will help those microbes decompose the OM and then release nitrogen as the microbes die or as decomposition moves farther along.
My guess is that the wood chips are inhibiting the growth of the strawberries and daylillies because they have less vigorous and shallow roots. So whatever was in those wood chips also inhibited te root growth of those two species. The daylilly pic looks like the roots were pruned off.
The Hostas are much more vigorous plants and have deeper root systems. Also it seems that the Hostas may not be as senstive to whatver might have been in the wood chips and seems to out compete the other plants. Hastas tend to grow extensive roots systems so I do not see anything unusual there. Also the darker leaved hosta you have is a type that grows very large. Hastas are known to take over if left unchecked. I have several and dig mine up every couple of years. As far as the holes in the hosta leaves I do not think those are from the wood chips but due to some insect.
