9 Pothos Plant Diseases: Prevention and Treatment
You’ll rarely encounter pothos growing issues—although diseases can infect them, they often don’t! If they do, this guide has everything you need to identify, prevent, and treat common pathogens. Learn to turn suffering pothos vines into healthy, perky ones alongside seasoned grower Jerad Bryant.
Contents
Diseases are never welcome—they turn healthy plants into suffering ones! Most are preventable, while others are easily treatable. The key with pothos is keeping it happy; healthy plants resist pathogens better than weak ones.
Give your bushy vines bright indirect light, consistent moisture, and some airflow. The vines lose leaves in full shade and start looking scorched under full sun. By providing exposure like bright indirect sunlight or partial shade, you encourage the vines to grow plenty of leaves that stay on the stems.
Do not fear if diseases infect the vines; the pathogens will most likely disappear after you treat them, and you can always take new cuttings from healthy vines if your plant doesn’t survive. Whether you’re dealing with rot, leaf spot, or wilt, this guide provides easy treatment solutions and prevention techniques. Let’s dive in!
Bacterial Leaf Spot
This condition is rarely fatal; it causes brown and black spots on pothos foliage, leading to premature leaf drop and weak growth. The water-logged spots spread wider if moist, wet conditions that promote bacterial growth persist. Although it doesn’t kill the vines, it can cause long-term damage and weak growth.
How to Identify
Bacterial leaf spots look like water-soaked lesions. They may have a yellow ring on their margins, and they’ll turn brown and black as they spread throughout the leaves. The spots come from a few different bacterial strains including Pseudomonas cichorii, Pectobacterium carotovorum, and Dickeya chrysanthemi.
How to Prevent
Bacterial leaf spot often stems from overhead watering, where water droplets persist on the leaf surface. Prevent these spots by watering the plant at its base, directing water towards the soil instead of the leaves. Avoid soggy soil, and let the roots dry out between waterings.
How to Treat
Leaf spot is easily treatable! Simply snip off any leaves with bacterial spots and discard them far away from your plant. Let the soil dry, stop overhead watering, and you should see the spots disappear as the vines grow new leaves.
Cutting Soft Rot
Bacterial leaf spot pathogens cause cutting soft rot. It’s a bacterial condition that infects rooting propagules while they’re young. You can easily avoid this condition by propagating healthy cuttings free of visible symptoms using sterile potting media.
How to Identify
Cutting soft rot looks like a mushy, brown mess! You’ll notice leaf spots and mushy stems, and the cuttings may smell rotten. This condition is common in wet environments with overhead watering. It’s caused by two bacterial pathogens, Pectobacterium carotovorum and Dickeya chrysanthemi.
How to Prevent
Consider propagating cuttings in soil, and water them at their base to avoid splashing droplets on the leaves. If cuttings start showing soft rot symptoms, discard them far away from your other healthy specimens still forming roots.
How to Treat
Soft rot is impossible to treat once it takes hold of a cutting. Discard any if they have rotting symptoms, and try the process again with healthy vines and sterile potting soil. Avoid taking cuttings from any plants that have signs of bacterial leaf spot.
Bacterial Wilt
Another common bacterial condition, wilt, leads to mushy, discolored leaves and rotten stems on fresh cuttings. It’s most present in warm, wet conditions in greenhouses and tropical regions. You’ll see leaves turn yellow with black or brown veins before they wilt completely.
How to Identify
This wilt grows from a different species than the previous two bacterial conditions. It’s from Ralstonia solanacearum, a bacterium that infects other plants like tomatoes, potatoes, and geraniums. You’ll notice leaf spots that continue growing outward, turning healthy leaves into black, brown, and wilted ones. Stems grow mushy and rotten in severe infections.
How to Prevent
Prevent wilt from occurring by using healthy cutting materials and potting them in sterile soil. The bacteria spread in irrigation water, as they can survive underwater for long periods. Avoid watering from overhead for soil-based pothos, and regularly change the container water for water-based cuttings.
How to Treat
Bacterial wilt can cause significant losses for commercial growers attempting to propagate more plants. At the first signs of infection, remove all vines with wilt symptoms and discard them far away from the remaining healthy specimens. Sterilize the growing environment, whether your kitchen counter or an outdoor greenhouse.
Root Rot
Root rot is often a result of fungal contaminants rather than bacterial ones. It’s the most common affliction of pothos plants. You’ll notice yellowing leaves and weak, mushy stems on aboveground growth. It’s difficult to treat once it occurs but it’s easily preventable. Keep your pothos happy and healthy to discourage it from starting.
How to Identify
Root rot stems from two main fungal pathogens, Pythium splendens and Phytophthora nicotianae. They start on wounds near the roots and move upwards, causing wilting leaves, dying stems, and weak new growth. The leaves turn yellow, brown, then black.
How to Prevent
Prevent root rot by maintaining a moist, not soggy, soil culture. These fungal diseases spread in water and soil and can easily splash from one plant to the next. Always take cuttings from disease-free stems, and plant them in sterile water or potting soil.
How to Treat
Once root rot symptoms appear they’re nearly impossible to eradicate. Your best bet is propagating new, healthy cuttings and discarding the sick plant. Root rot spreads readily onto new hosts, and a sterile environment discourages future infections.
Stem Rot
Stem rot is very similar to root rot. It’s a fungal condition that leads to dying stems, leaves, and roots. The fungus Rhizoctonia solani causes it, and it’s common in wet, damp conditions. It’ll creep into sterile sites from old potting soil and slowly spread throughout greenhouses, homes, or outdoor gardens.
How to Identify
Stem rot starts spreading from spores within the soil. You’ll notice dark, irregular patches of dead tissue on the leaves. They spread throughout the plant onto new leaves, and some foliage sticks together as it wilts. Small, tiny strands of the fungus may be present and visible in severe infections.
How to Prevent
The best way to prevent stem rot is to use sterile potting soil and disease-free cuttings. Because this rot struggles to spread in water, it’s less likely to splash onto new plants. It spreads through long-lived spores that sit in the soil.
How to Treat
Once stem rot symptoms appear, it’s a good idea to isolate the infected plant from other healthy ones. Discard severely infected plants entirely, and start fresh with healthy cuttings. Sterilize the potting soil and the container the pothos lived in before recycling them.
Southern Blight
As its name suggests, southern blight is common in the South. It’s common in warm, humid conditions that are common throughout the southern states. This blight may extend northward through contaminated soil, spreading from nursery trucks into greenhouses and indoor settings.
How to Identify
Southern blight first manifests as a small, white fungal growth on top of the soil. You’ll notice white strands, called mycelia, that allow the fungus to creep and spread onto pothos vines. Once on the vine, the blight grows little sacs on dead stems. They’re called sclerotia, and they allow the disease to survive adverse conditions.
How to Prevent
Southern blight is easily preventable in cold, northern climates. Use fresh potting soil and disease-free pothos vines when propagating new plants, and avoid using soil from other regions. Consistent moisture, heat, and humidity help this blight thrive. Moderate your home or garden to have less of the three to discourage blight infections.
How to Treat
Southern blight is ruthless! It’ll quickly kill pothos vines under its preferred conditions. First, destroy infected plants and vines. Thoroughly clean clay or ceramic pots, as the sclerotia may cling to the sides while they wait for new hosts. Then, start anew with fresh soil, plants, and pots.
Weak Variegation
Weak variegation isn’t a disease, but it is a frustrating condition. You expect lush, bright leaves and receive plain ones with little markings. Fortunately, this physiological condition is easily preventable and treatable.
How to Identify
Weak variegation manifests in pothos varieties that have multi-color leaves. Whether yellow, green, or white, the leaves lose their colors and turn yellow or plain green. Neon-yellow varieties lose their sheen, and variegated types may turn all green.
How to Prevent
Weak variegation is most often from a lack of light, as the leaves struggle to photosynthesize and maintain color. Keep your vines close to a window where they receive bright indirect light or partial shade. Grow lights are an efficient way to add light to dark rooms, allowing you to grow pothos wherever you’d like.
How to Treat
Weak variegation can also be from reversion, a common condition in plant cultivars and varieties. Vines may revert to their original form and crowd out the desired variety. Remove these reverted stems or weakly variegated leaves to start the treatment process. Move the plant closer to the light and see how it responds over the next few weeks.
Tiny Foliage
Little leaves are common on mature plants growing in the same container for many years. Small or medium-sized leaves sprout off weak stems. The pothos plants may have too little light or nutrients, depending on how much they receive during the growing season.
How to Identify
Your pothos vines will have small leaves instead of large, lush, brightly-colored ones. They may be yellow or pale green, and the stems may grow slowly or not at all. This condition is common for plants sitting in too much shade.
How to Prevent
Prevent tiny leaves by keeping your pothos well-fed under sufficient light. If you regularly feed your plant and it has small leaves, it’s a light issue. If your plant has enough light but hasn’t received fertilizer in years or months, it needs more nutrients.
How to Treat
Move shaded pothos into bright indirect sunlight indoors, ensuring the vines are well-lit throughout the day. Fertilize potted plants monthly during the growing season with a balanced organic fertilizer. Water in the fertilizer well and watch the leaves grow large, bright, and perky!
Nutrient Imbalances
Nutrient imbalances, with either too much or too little fertilizer, cause issues that look like disease symptoms. The two most common imbalances are with manganese and nitrogen, although other nutrients may cause symptoms. A soil test kit is an easy way to know for sure—it tells you how much of each nutrient your soil has, its organic matter content, and the pH level.
How to Identify
Manganese toxicity presents itself like a rust fungus, with orange and yellow flecks on the leaf surfaces. Nitrogen excess causes yellow or brown leaf tips and dark green leaves, while not enough leads to entirely yellow leaves and weak growth.
How to Prevent
Manganese excess is common for plants that receive too much micronutrient fertilizer, or ones that face frequent fungicide usage. Avoid nutrient imbalances by using a balanced organic fertilizer monthly during the growing season. More, or less, than this may create nutrient deficiencies for your budding vines.
How to Treat
Two options are available to fix nutrient imbalances. Leach out excess nutrients by watering your plant on low for an hour or longer. The water will help push out the fertilizer remnants and allow you to start over. If there aren’t enough nutrients, apply monthly helpings of organic fertilizer from spring through fall.
