I recently acquired a young jade plant with several stems in its pot. Two of the stems are afflicted with a kind of black spot which seems to eat into the stem. They look like cigarette burns and are circular, and I'm afraid that this may spread to the other stems.

I know these plants do not need much water and do not have any way of finding out how the last owner may have handled it. They may have overwatered at some point but I doubt it.

Today, I repotted the plant into a slightly larger pot (not upsetting the rootball) and all the roots are healthy. Can anyone help me identify this mold/fungal/bacterial infection?

What should I do and can I save the stems that are infected?

Here is a picture to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. There is a larger, blacker and more concave spot on another stem. This is the smaller one.



Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

it could be some kind of rot associated with overwatering or it could be the result of bruising.

see this jade info page for more.

i'd say to cut above where the spots are and root those pieces. also, cut the below the spots too so that you remove it completely from the healthy portions of the plant - you don't want it to spread.

Hey everyone, thanks for the tips!

I had gone along and done that a few hours after posting that picture after reading up on jade propagation.

I made a clean cut with a sterile knife and am now callousing one of the branches before adding hormone and placing it in soil.

It *may* be bruising but I have a feeling that it is damage due to overwatering with the last owner - the big clue is that these sores are all around the lower parts of the stem, slightly above or right where the top soil layer rests.

The branch with the largest black spot (about 5 times the one in that picture) is starting to have wrinkled leaves. The leaves are still healthy, nothing falling off. If this rooting I'm doing now is successful, I'll do cuttings for all the affected stems.

I'll keep you updated. Thanks again.

if the leaves are starting to wrinkle up, best to do some pruning now...before the branch gets too bad!

post some pics of your new plants, once they've gotten established!