Weird spike killer.....help please

[Learner]

I hope someone can help me with this devil. A Phal with a six inch spike was fine one day and the spike was dead the next day. About 1.5 inches from the tip, the tissue was shrivelled and limp. It appeared to have white spots on it and I thought of insects except that nothing moved or was scraped off. I cut off the spike and examined it under a binocular dissecting scope at 40X magnification. There were a hundred or more white spots of all different sizes. The largest looked like a dense clump. The medium sized spots looked like snowflakes and the smallest looked like a few white "eggs" sitting together. Only the largest show up in the photo

The unusual thing is that all of this was inside the plant tissue; just below the surface. The largest clump were about 1 millimeter in diameter (sorry about jumping to metric) or about 1/25 of an inch. The smallest clumps were a tenth of that. The size of the "eggs" was very small. Three of them were about the same as the diameter of a fine hair.

My calling them eggs is only descriptive. I don't think they are insect eggs, but I am hoping someone else has seen this infection and can steer me in the right direction.

The photo is the best I can do without a scope mounted camera.

[camille1585]

Might be a fungus. Sounds like what you are describing are the mycelium or spores.

[lambelkip]

the picture's not really clear enough to tell, but i would guess fungus too.

[Gin]

I agree with the above could be the spike had a very small crack in it allowing the spores to move in or spike fluid to harden into what you are seeing .. Sorry just my Gin

[Learner]

I agree with everyones comments. I can't think of anything other than fungus. But, it is still strange. An update: I had cut the spike off about an inch below the obvious infected area and coated the cut with cinnamon. This morning, the area that looked healthy appears to be infected with white spots down to the next node. Obviously it is spreading which also argues for a fungus. I have isolated the plant and will watch it closely to see if the infection goes below the node. If so, I will remove the entire spike and hope the plant makes it. I have coated everything with physan 20 and will do so daily. Or do you think this is too much? I will keep posting on the condition in case anyone else has seen this problem. Thanks Jim

[lambelkip]

not sure daily coating with physan 20 will help. from what you've said, the infection is inside the plant, and physan is designed for external use. you might need a systemic fungicide, like phyton 27.

[Learner]

Yeah, Kip....I guess I knew that. But by the time I get some phyton 27, this poor baby will be a goner. This way I feel like I'm doing something. Tomorrow morning....major surgery.

[Ray]

Cut the spike off at its base, well below the infected part.