Grey Mold – What to Know About This Common Problem

grey mold
African violets are often affected by grey mold.

Grey mold’s also called Botrytis cinerea. It can affect any part of your plant, and it’s a very common disease in bedding plants. it easily infects plants that are already starting to die or that are damaged. It will then spread fast and can cause a lot of damage to plants’ healthy parts.

Moisture’s one of the main reasons that grey mold occurs. When your plants are very moist, they are more likely to get infected. An injury to a plant can cause this. So you want to be very careful when you’re around the plants.

Identifying Damage from Grey Mold

  • Grey mold damage will depend on environmental conditions and plant type. However, generally, you will see spots that look like they’re water-soaked form on the plant’s leaves. They might look like they’re white in the beginning.
  • The spots then will change in color from a grey color to brown. Eventually, it will cover the majority of a leaf and cause wilting. This brown color’s what makes people think it’s brown mold instead of grey.
  • Under conditions of really high humidity, you might see webbing grey in color on the plant’s leaves. Inside the webbing are the structures which have fuzzy spores in them. these will become active, getting released with any kind of activity. The buds, stems, and petals also can be infected.
  • Eventually, all of the parts that are infected in the plant will be covered in a grey, fuzzy growth. Your flowers will also look grey.

Controlling Grey Mold

  • Remove and destroy infected plants
  • Clean between plants thoroughly so that the disease can’t infect the other plants.
  • Prevent any further infections with sprays that have cultural controls in them.

Preventing Grey Mold

  • Carefully handle plants when you are pruning and transplanting. Grey mold will usually attack plants that are wounded. So avoid causing harm to your plants.
  • Keep plants dry. Avoid watering later during the day and overhead watering. Allow your plants to have some time for drying off after you water them.
  • Properly space plants so that ample air circulation is encouraged.
  • Clean between plants. remove any kind of debris, including dead leaves and cuttings.

We hope that you found this to be helpful. Contact us today if you’re interested in our plant health care program. You also can reach us on Facebook.

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