This is an alteration to a method of flower spike propagation i saw
online hereYou can complete the following tek without hormones or fungicides by following the tek on that link. The alterations i have made have provided higher success rates and faster growth times in my experience so i thought some of you might be interested. The following method
only works on Phalaenopsis, Epidendrum, and Dendrobium to the best of my knowledge but feel free to experiment it would be interesting to know if other species could be cultivated this way as well.
This is also a great way to grow your collection if you dont mind asking local nursery's if they mind giving you their spent flower spikes when they remove them from the plant. In most case's they will be completely fine with it, and you can get a large variety of plants in a relatively short amount of time. The only thing is that you will have to wait quite a while for them to flower but for some people such as myself it is completely worth the time. :
P.s. With plants that have multiple spikes you can get 12 or more keiki's using this method instead of the regular 3 or 4 that is recommended when the plants remain attached to the mother through the growing process.
If you still don't understand how this is possible heres a little more detailed of an explanation.
Each flower stem usually has between 3-6 dormant nodes and each of these can become a Keiki. So when you cut the spike into sections you leave them each to fend for themselves instead of them all sharing the same nutrients. this prevents some from getting big while the other ones die out due to lack of energy, and prevents already sick mother plants from dying from the energy expenditure involved in the production of the Keiki.
Anyways down to the actual method:
1) cut off the spike(s) of your orchid to be propagted at the first node once it has finished flowering.
2) then cut that into 1-2 inch sections with each section containing a dormant node in the middle
3) apply a small amount of keiki paste to each dormant node after removing the sheath. This will dramatically increase your chances of success and the rate of growth.
If you dont want to buy expensive pre-mixed hormones the pure ingredients(benzylaminopurine, kinetin, zeatin, lanolin) can be found on ebay for a couple dollars cheaper for each, and i will teach you how to go about making your own solutions and pastes if you send me a private message. In the long term it is a useful skill to have and i would be glad to pass it on to interested individuals.
4)lay the spike cuttings horizontally in pots filled with wet vermicluite with the node facing upwards. the vermiculite is to lower the chance of the spike rotting at the cut end. Another method is to soak the stem sections in a 3mg/L paclobutrazol solution for 15 minutes. This acts as a fungicide and will also increase your chances of success vastly and remove the need for vermiculite. Another added bonus of using a paclobutrazol dip is that it has been shown to have a synergistic effect with the ingredients in Keiki paste increasing the number of formed Keiki's by 29%+ when compared to Keiki paste on it's own. I first noticed this effect about a week ago when doing this exact tech on my recent phalaenopsis cuttings but i wasn't to sure if the paclobutrazol was directly responsible or not but after doing some research i found that the enhanced breaking of dormancy was already a noted effect and that 2 or 3 studies had been done on the subject, here is a link to one of them
http://www.ijat-aatsea.com/pdf/june_...at2008_45f.pdf for those of you that are interested in seeing the evidence behind my claims.
5)place the pots with the spike cuttings in a ziplock bag and seal it.
6)once a day open the bags to let in fresh air and check the water levels, the vermiculite should remain constantly moist. after a nice halthy green color has developed on the new growths water the vermiculite with a mixture of 50% water and 50% coconut water to provide them with the nutrients they need to keep growing.
7)Once Keiki's have formed wait for roots to develop and let them grow to about 1.5-2 inches long before removing the Keiki from the spike with a sharp clean knife and transplanting it into it's container where it will stay for the next 1-2 years depending on root growth.
You can decrease the length of time it takes to obtain roots and transplant your new Keiki to 6 months-1 year by either using one of the many Kelp Spray products on the market at 1/3 the dosage for houseplants, or by using KultureShocks Proprietary blend of Kelp extract, Indole butyric acid, Indole acetic acid, and brassinolide. Both products are relatively cheap come to around 11$ for enough to make 10 gallons of solution or more and will last you a very long time. Both will also decrease the amount of time needed before flowering can be acheived. The wider array of rooting hormones combined with the steroidal effects of brassinolide make KultureShock's formula a bit more effective so if you have a plant that you desperately want to get to root our solution will provide faster results and resistance to drought,cold shock, transpant shock,and disease further increasing your chances of success.
(for those of you who are interested in making your own solutions instead of buying pre-made ones simply send me a private message and i will provide you with instructions on how to do so. You will have to go about acquiring the hormones yourself though. E-bay is a good place to look.)
this simple method allows you to obtain up to 12 Keiki's per plant without putting stress on the mother plant, as the flower spike is already removed prior to keiki paste application. This allows the mother to put all of her energy in growing new roots and leaves and getting ready for next flowering season. Also if you leave the spike on the mother and apply the paste their is the risk in unhealthy plants of them just not having the energy to product the Keiki, and when they do the mother plant dies. So it is a much better method if you do not mind cutting off your flower spike when it is done blooming. Note this method only works for Phalaenops,Epidendrum, and Dendrobium to the best of my knowledge but feel free to experiment as i have seen Keiki paste work on a Cattleya when applied to the basal ring, a couple years ago.
I will be posting pictures in the following weeks of a recent batch of phalaenopsis done with this method. I hope this information was of use and once again please ask if you have any questions, and i thought hard before i posted in advanced and i'm pretty sure this belongs but if not just send me a Private Message and i will get one of the moderators to change it to something they deem more appropriate ASAP.
Best regards,
Kevin Disher
KultureShock
Edit: Here are some pictures of what the nodes look like currently on my most recent spike that i used this method on. It has been 9 days since paclobutrazol and keiki paste was applied.
The nodes in these first two picture are actually gree not yellow it is just poor lighting in the photo.The node's started out completely flat against the stem and have no grown and lifted away from the stem noticeable. These nodes received a lower dose of paclobutrazol then the nodes in the next two pictures and you can clearer see the difference.
These node's have grown quite a lot more then the other ones and the only difference is that instead of 1ppm paclobutrazol they received three.
I will be posting more pictures as they continue to grow and i appologize for not taking pictures of before the application.
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