How to Treat Cactus Fungus

Cactus are touted as easy-to-grow, low-maintenance plants. Unfortunately, cactus plants contract fungal diseases that can cause health problems for the plants and even death. There are numerous fungal diseases that can affect cactus plants, such as dry rot, cactus anthracnose, cotton root rot, sunscald and stem rot. To treat these diseases effectively, you need to correctly identify the fungus and properly treat the plant using cultural or chemical control methods.

Knife
Fungicide
Bypass shears
Cactus potting medium
Gravel

Instructions

- 1
  Cut into a healthy part of the cactus plant to treat stem rot. Symptoms of stem root include yellow spots on stems and brown fungal growth. Make your cut 1/2 an inch into healthy cactus tissue. Apply a powdered fungicide to the cut section that contains ethyl mercaptan.
- 2
  Spray the cactus plant with a fungicide that contains copper to control anthracnose. Cacti that are infected with anthracnose display symptoms such as areas of light-brown plant tissue with pink pustules or fungi growing on the surface. Repeat applications according to the directions.
- 3
  Dig the cactus carefully out of the soil to examine for root rot. Prune off areas of root rot with a pair of bypass shears. Root rot causes roots to turn black and mushy. Repot the cactus in a sterilized cactus potting medium.
- 4
  Spread a 1- to 2-inch layer of gravel over the surface of the cactus soil. This will help keep fungal spores from spreading to the rest of the plant during treatment, and it will also serve as a prevention method.
- 5
  Remove and destroy cactus plants that have contracted dry rot, sunscald or cotton root rot. Signs of dry rot include black circular spots. Sunscald causes cactus plants to produce reddish-brown spots. You can identify cotton root rot by digging the cactus out of the soil and looking for brown strands of fungi.

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