Ooo thank you so much! I didn't realise it was a succulent, I was sold it as a cactus!

I've touched the brown section, I'd say it's ever so slightly soft but not overly. Definitely not moist or oozey! However there does seem to be alot of movement around the base of the plant, as if it isn't very stable.

In your opinion what should I do to help this plant? I don't want it to die, but as shown in my earlier post alot of the stalks have died already.

I will change the growing media as you said, will this be enough? - Or would I be better to take cuttings and try to grow a new healthy plant from these?

Thanks again

Rachel, it's very hard for me to make an assessment when I am not physically there to examine your plant. I don't quite understand what you mean by soft but not overly.

I see that your last picture you had lost a couple of stems, so perhaps if its really rot setting in the base, you need to catch where is the rot happening at.

If it's right under all the stems towards the roots, you are better of cutting off as much rot/brown portion as possible until you see healthy green stems, and try to root the cutting as best as you can.

At this point, you can try to snap 1 or 2 healthy cuttings at the tip end towards the base. Always let the cuttings dry up and callous before their to root them in new soil. And also make sure when you snap them apart, the stem must be close as to the root base as possible, if you can snap some roots with the stem even better.

Thanks so much for all this info! It's really helpful :)

Do you know if taking a cutting from the main plant to grow on would reduce the chance of it recovering? Or if this is rot, will it definitely die?

Also, is this plant dangerous to my other cacti/succulents? Can rot be infectious?

Thanks,

Rachael

If the stem or roots have already rotted, there is no point keeping the plant. You should just cut off whatever healthy portion of the plant you can and salvage by rooting them. So to answer your question, yes, the plant will die if rot has already set in the stem. And when you cut the plant, you will see brownish flesh instead of healthy green stem.

Rot only happens when you overwatered your plant, and the xerophytic roots cannot cope with too much moisture and die, hence letting rot take over and slowly killing the plant from the bottom.

Rot does not spread, but if all your other plants are planted in the same moisture retentive mix, chances are you will rot and kill another plant with too much water. The trick here is to add some porous materials like pumice/grit/perlite into your soil to allow airflow to quickly dry the mix.

Okay! I will inspect it properly and try to root the bits which don't have any rot yet! I've done what you said and bought different potting material - I've mixed some coir based compost, perlite and chicken grit at a ratio of about 2:1:1

I've tried this on one cactus as an experiment, but it still doesn't seem to be drying very quickly -after 24 hours it was still damp. Do you think I need more grit and perlite in the mixture? :)

Rachel

2 parts of coir could be too much, maybe max 1 part...

Yeah i thought it could be too much, I'll adjust it today!

When it has rooted, try to put a top dress of wormcastings. Works for me.