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Jade Plant - Diagnosis

JacquelineNicole

11 years ago

Recently, the leaves of my jade plant have been overtaken by small white and black flecks that look a lot like tiny pencil shavings. Attached I have provided a picture. The health of the plant is declining, and while the leaves remain green they easily drop from the plant when I attempt to wipe the shavings from the leaves. Can anyone tell me what plagues my plant and how I can treat it?

Many thanks for your help!!

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Comments (6)

jean001a
11 years ago
Your jade plant has a whopping case of scale. Any effort to get rid them will require many years of persistent effort & likely you will still lose the battle.

The problem is major environmental stress. As an indoor plant, it receives far too little light and heat, the latter from being outdoors in the sun.

I suggest you cut your losses and obtain a fresh plant.
rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
11 years ago
Not sure, but I think I see some scale on the dark leaves in the right hand corner of the image. Scale insects AND aphids, yikes.
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My own unscientific observations is that whenever my plants have had disease like you show, there have been watering issues. Either soil too wet, too dry, wet spots & dry spots together, leaves wet at night, soil goes gets too dry before watering. All this causes stress. You might want to use the finger method to continually observe the container wetness and notice the plants health at the same time. After doing this awhile you can usually tell just by looking at the plant the state of the soil wetness. Also, even if my plants were fertilizer deprived, but the soil wetness was good, they didn't develop disease (they just stayed yellow in color and didn't grow much). Also watering the leaves on a hot sunny day, helps prevent disease. Spore/fungus will start to grow but as the leaves dry in about 1/2 an hour, they die.
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Thanks, all! Speaking of eating leaves, have you ever tasted the leaves of Crassula ovata? Let me tell you, they are quite unpalatable. Anyhow, bad news on this Jade. I left it out until well after midnight, and the temps were down around 28Â°F. When I brought it in, the leaves had begun to discolor. So I'm looking at a total frost-chop, now. We'll see how much tissue dies. Josh
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Hi RemoteDoc, I can't tell whether it's Early Blight or Septoria, but, in either case, I recommend you pick off (and throw away) all infected leaves. Then start a regular (once every 1-2 weeks) spraying program with Daconil (AKA Ortho Garden Disease Control, amongst other brands). This will not cure the disease, but will help keep it from spreading. Also, if your plants are not mulched, you should mulch them very soon. Both of these leaf diseases are very common. With care, your plants will survive and produce a good crop. Good luck!
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
11 years ago
and the stress starts with a wildly old plant in a very small pot ...

this thing has been tortured with love for much too long..

divest.. and track down a cool new variegated one ...

and if you have any other house plants.. time to check them all for bugs ....

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link
JacquelineNicole
Original Author
11 years ago
Although I am very sad to learn the news, thank you very much for the informative and helpful responses.
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
11 years ago
oh.. dont be sad ... its served you well..

and offers you a new opportunity ...

ken
Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
11 years ago
Hi & welcome to Gardenweb. So sorry about your plant, looks like it was a really big, nice one. It may have gotten unhealthy from not enough light, which makes it a more inviting home for insects. If you do look for a new jade, a sunnier spot might be better.

Is it warm enough where you live to put this outside? If so, that's what I would do. Probably trim it back drastically, try to wash/rub all of the insects on the remaining parts, and see how it does in more sun. There are also systemic insecticides but I've never bought one. I think a systemic is needed for scale, but not totally sure.

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