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Cacti & Succulents House Plants

Help: Pruned succulent stem rotting

last year

I've had a succulent plant for years. I think it might be a type of jade but with really long cylindrical leaves. For the last 6-7 years I've been pruning it to look like a little tree (24 inch long straight stem with a big bushy ball of leaves at the top). But it was getting too top heavy for the 1.5 inch thick stem so I decided to cut the top off and repot it. The repotted top is doing great, but I really wanted the stem to send out new shoots and keep growing in some way. It did send out new shoots just below where I cut it but then it also started to rot from where I cut it. After a few weeks I cut it again below the rot but it eventually rotted again. I tried cutting it below the rot again and putting a turmeric paste over the wound to help it heal but that didn't help- it's still rotting. There's a little bit of growth at the very bottom of the stem (a few inches above the soil) so I know it still has life in it, I'm just worried it's going to rot all the way down to the base. Anyway to get a new cut to scar over so the new growth can keep growing?

Comments (3)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
last year
how about some pix ...

dont overwater a plant that has no leaves ... especially a jade plant.. explain your system ...

ken
tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
last year
It's probably too late, but when you truncate succulents, you can wipe the sap off the wound with a paper towel or clean rag until it stops flowing, then carefully paint the wound with waterproof wood glue. It might not be rot that you're seeing. Wounds in very fleshy plants like Crassula an Aeonium tend to desiccate/ dry out for a considerable proximal distance from the cut. The propagule (or cutting) is usually nowhere near as susceptible to drying out as the rooted portion of the plant; this because the plant is still working to move water upward through the plant's plumbing/ vasculature.

I typically save tag ends (the part you cut off after securing) of different size zip ties to use as sort of a spatula. I squeeze the waterproof wood glue onto the zip tie tail. then spread it over the wound carefully, so the wound itself is covered but clue isn't smeared all over the stem below the wound. Typically, that's where you want your back-budding to occur, instead of looking at a bunch of dead/ desiccated tissue.

All of these plants are grown from single stems and all were treated with waterproof wood glue as a matter of course. I always treat Crassula and Portulacaria that way, too, along with all wounds larger than about 1/4" on my bonsai trees as well.

This one ^^^ has been reduced over time and is growing in a Chapstick cap

While I agree with the idea that treating wounds of most trees in the landscape more often than not exacerbates rot issues further down the road, creating problem/ hazardous trees, that doesn't apply to trees grown in containers because they are not subjected to the massive forces of strong wind and tons of weight. There is no question that this technique hastens production of callus tissue to cover the wound and prevent unsightly dieback.

Al
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I think it is a fungal infection. Notice that the only leaves remaining are those contacting still green stem. It does not have to be soft to be rot, at least not early on. Remove that plant from the pot immediately and have a closer look. I don't think that one is going to be salvageable, but you may be able to propogate new plants from the few leaves that don't have discoloration at the base. Brad
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I find this plant very hardy and its stem gets very stiff as wood very soon after the last couple of pairs of leaves. hence the colour. It's not easy to get this plant rotten, but you never know. Just to be sure make sure you get a feel of the base of the stem and see if if feels mushy or not.
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Hmm. To all of you suggesting cutting, your advice sort of goes back to my initial issue. I have been cutting this plant, repeatedly, back to the green tissue, no rot left, with a sterilized pruner. (This adenium was actually rather full and branchy at the start of winter.) I've cared for stem rot before and know the technique. In this case, the rot came back at each cutting, and and new unconnected branches started rotting as well, which is something I have not experienced before in a stem rot case. At present, if I cut off the rot, I will not be "giving it a haircut"-- I will be cutting off a literal half of the crown, at the main fork where it first branched seven years ago. All of the branches to the right of the fork will go. If that's what it takes to save the plant, I'll do it. But given that pruning over the last few weeks has seemed only to result in rot reappearing closer to the main stem, I'm worried that making a major cut will just result in the same. If this cut doesn't work, the rot spreads to the main stem. My next step would have to be to cut all of the branches off, back to the base, leaving the plant with no leaves and in a pretty poor position to heal. :) So yeah, I'm a little bit trigger-shy this time. But I'll go ahead and make the cut later today.
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I think you should cut higher up because there looks like more rot farther up on the stem. The flesh of the stem when you cut should be clean, no brown marks. Make sure to use a clean sharp knife. I also drew another line where you could cut on the rooted part. If you want give the rooted part a try. After you cut, pot up into a fast draining mix like 50% rinsed strained perlite or pumice and 50% cactus mix, and water in about 5 days. Be patient and you may get baby plants. Goodluck;). You may pop off a leaf or two, but that’s fine because you could just set those on top of some mix. Eventually roots should come out.
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HU-154468165
Original Author
last year
Cool advice. I'll do another clean cut below the rot and apply some wood glue. Hopefully that will work. You can't really see it in the picture but there are little bits of new growth 4-5 inches down. So if I cut it below the current rot that goes around 3 inches down, it will heopfully still grow. I'm also interested in other advice if anyone has any. Thank you.

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