Sphagnum turning yellow

[Eithern]

Hello, someone had this problem before? I don't know if it is a normal winter behaviour but since a few months my sphagnum seems to randomly discoloring and dying.

The strange thing is that few centimeters away is still healty so I don't think the problem could be the water or the substrate (coco peat).

[Eithern]

If it can help it was like this respectively in summer and this november.

[DoumH]

Any update pics / thoughts?

Some of my Sphagnum has turned white (while being wet) just like yours. I've been told it's due to a fungal infection killing the chlorophyll in the plant. I'm not sure if that's true or not, I've not had it for long enough to see if the plants will die. But I'm assuming they will at least stop growing bc the lack of chlorophyll.

[partisangardener]

My answer comes a bit late. I had a fungal attack which looked like yours. It was in an outside bog with different species of Sphagnum. An  area of about a square meter had symptoms. At first it looked like every Sphagnum plant in this area would die or being already dead.  More than 90% was gone there in the end.

Surprisingly it regrew within a year to its former strength out of this dead pads ( no replanting on my side). The symptoms did not spread to the other adjacent Sphagnum moss pads while the infection killed the mosses in this patch. The  fungus did fruit, but no new event occurred in following years.

I do not know why it did happen and also not why it went. I think fungi of different species helped to protect the healthy areas. I usually use living Sphagnum to propagate plants without mold attacks (seeds and cuttings). Which is due to helpful fungi living in symbiosis with Sphagnum.

Edited January 25 by partisangardener