I have a small DIY hydroponics set up on my kitchen counter. I usually grow beans, lettuce or strawberries and rotate. Right now I have beans. I noticed these small things growing on the roots – started on just one of the three plants and now is on all three. Ideas about what it could be? Can I salvage the plants?
by Echo_In_The_Wind
1 Comment
Since beans are nitrogen fixers, I assume you are dealing with *Rhizobiaceae*. Bacteria that reside in small nodules within the root system of legumes and fix nitrogen from the air. If you like you can carefully peel one of them off and cut it open. If it shows red inside, it’s pretty likely that these are nitrogen fixing nodules containing those bacteria. They are not harmful, in a soil setting they’d actually be beneficial since they accumulate high nitrogen biomass that is then cycled back into the soil, fertilizing plants with high nitrogen demand or rehabilitating nitrogen deficient soil.