Quote:
Originally Posted by Tobi  In my 40 years of working in a Microbiology Lab, I have not heard of the term
"microfungus". Micro (indicating small) fungus is just too general of a term. If,
and I repeat if this is indeed a fungal infection, then it could be identified doing
a fungal culture. From what I have read, this was never attempted. A culture
would also rule out or identify a bacteria as well. I'll have to do a little more
research on this and see if I can find out anything more on it. |
Microfungus is a broad term referring to any fungus that does not produce a large fruiting body (macrofungus). It's kind of a pointless term for discussing orchid diseases as the pathogenic fungi that affect orchids are, as far as I'm aware, microfungi.
I've heard about the Phal 'microfungus' problem before. As far as I can make out it's just an unidentified/misidentified fungal problem in Phals.
A lot of accounts suggests it spreads easily and can quickly kill the plant, as will any fungal problem if you don't know what fungus is the cause and therefore don't know what fungicide to use. I can only imagine, as often happens in orchid horticulture, that someone picked up on the term and ran with it despite inappropriate context. Microfungus sounds much more menacing and 'face-savingly' incurable than leaf rot
.