Hello repotting jbp today is this white stuff good or bad?
Really tough to see from this pic, even zoomed in. Any closer shots?
next to impossible to tell. But, are the white spots moving/grain like or rather like small pieces of paper tissue?
That is mycorrhizae if there are no aphids present
I didn’t see any movement, but I didn’t know how tiny they are, visible to the naked eye?
Later I remembered that I have a jewelers loupe and I could have used that, but had already done the repotting by then. Most of it ended up in the compost heap.
I don’t have a ton of first hand experience, but IIRC the mycorrhizae exist between the roots like a web (though they do touch the roots) and root aphids exist on the roots and feed on it.
From the pictures, I think it looks more like mycorrhizae, but tough to say with any certainty.
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It seems healthy overall
If I recall correctly there is one of the BSOP series where Ryan showed a tree with root aphids, might be worth to check it out, unfortunately I can’t recall which one it is.
I think it’s the last one, the soils video. Towards the end on the blue spruce.
I don’t remember if there’s a super good shot of it or not.
Eric Schrader did just put up some root aphid stuff on his blog recently too.
True it’s on the blue spruce, I can’t remember either if there is a super good shot of them but I do believe he says what you were mentioning, if they are ON the root it’s aphids.
Yeah. Another good video with root aphids is this Rocky Mountain Juniper second repot video. They definitely got some good content on the aphids. Less than 10 minutes in.
https://live.bonsaimirai.com/library/video/rocky-mountain-juniper-second-repotting
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I just watched this, the Jin on that Rocky Mountain Juniper is the one used for the Asymmetry Podcast right? lol
With that level of “infestation” you will know very quickly whether it is aphids or beneficial micorrhyzae. If the tree was looking healthy, my bet would be beneficial…as that did not happen overnight.