Mycorrhizae or root aphids

Replaced the surface soil an a blue spruce the other day at it wasn't draining well. Found this all over in the soil. Can anyone tell what it is and if its a problem?

Snot rocket fungus?

Is the tree looking stressed? If not, why the worry? You say it is not draining well, but how is the tree.....

The tree is doing alright. Planning a repot next spring anyways. I just wanted to get a jump on treatment if it was something. Not 100% sure if its the fungus clogging the drainage, or if its sand from not prewashing some of the soil

I'm no expert, but having a fungus present it self in this manner, at the surface, is cause for pause. Monitor closely.

This is the tree this season. Came front a home improvement store last year so lots of work left to do. I'm curious as to what you would recommend to combat the slime. I've read about letting the pot and all sit in an insecticidal soap solution, and also spraying vinegar which i'm hesitant about

Looks like root aphids.

Bonsai Tonight had an article about dealing with root aphids a week ago, or so. Check it out and see what Jonas has to say.

I don't know if that's root aphids or not, but I wish I had known more about root aphids earlier this year. I had a scots pine that came out of winter really weak and started browning out. I repotted it and found lots of what I thought was white fungus in the soil. It looked very much like the photo in this thread. It was like dense spider webbing that held the soil particles together and prevented water from getting through. Unfortunately I didn't think to look for aphids in that stuff.

As for the tree, the root system looked very weak. It has recovered somewhat but lost a lot of branches. It is producing a lot of buds so something might be salvageable.

I will say, I've had a couple of other trees over the past few years that had the soil clogged by this type of stuff. Some suggested it might be a type of wood fungus. I was talking to David Degroot about this issue when he was in Rochester a few years ago and he said he'd also seen cases where there appeared to be overgrowth of fungus of some type in the soil. Maybe that was root aphids...

Chris

Thanks everyone. I believe it to be aphids. I will begin treatment tomorrow!

You don't have root aphids where there are no roots. It's very healthy mycorrhiza and no need to do anything.

Agree.