How to treat a succulent with holes in its leaves?

Question

I have a succulent plant that got some disease and is covered with holes. The holes started to appear a month ago. At first they were green (like something was eating it), probably growing and then they dried out and turned brown.

There are no bugs/insects around. Ants are everywhere in my garden but not on this tree. What is it and how can I treat it?

Answer 1

This looks like anthracnose to me. The picture shows some typical symptoms:

• no yellowing leaves
• round sunken areas that are not soft or rotting but look brown, even bark like
• anthracnose is also common in Australia in many major crops such as mangos, olives, lupins, avocados, pistachios

Treatment

• easy way: cut the diseased tissue off with a knife or pruners. After each cut pass it through a flame or dip it in medicinal alcohol. Keep cutting until no diseased tissue is visible. Avoid fertilizer, as sometimes, lush new growth is more susceptible
• hard way: do all of the above and apply chemical control by spraying with Saprol (0.15%), Maneb powder spray (0.2%), Dithane, or Orthocid 50. Personally, I would rather throw the plant out than use this stuff again.

Answer 2

I have recently found this problem on some jade cuttings I planted directly into the ground. They looked very healthy and green until early spring (I live in South Australia) when I noticed these exact holes appearing in them. One day they were green and healthy then green holes appeared and now I have very unhappy looking dark brown holes where the plant has tried to heal the damage. I was lucky enough to see the perpetrator of this act (only once) and it was a small see through thin maggot type creature, less than 1 cm in length. I have searched the internet for answers but have found none. I have some beautiful full jade plants in my garden, so if anyone out there knows what to do about this, please let me know.