how do you train a spike?

[tmoney]

how do you pros do it?! too short to stake, but can’t leave it in place....

this is the best ive come up with but there’s got to be a real way

[camille1585]

That's the sort of thing I do as well, to help guide spikes into the right position. They are so fragile at that stage that I always get super nervous when a spike is developing in a strange way.

Lately I've been using flexible wire tires that are coated in a squishy material. I put a small stake near the spike, make an S hook with the tie and gently attach the spike to the stake in the direction I want it to go. I do the adjustment in small steps to avoid snapping the spike. Once it's growing in the right direction I remove it. Is my description clear?

[Shadeflower]

I try not to stake any of my flower spikes.

I use a tiny bit of silicon in my fertilizer to give flower spikes strength (apparently). https://staugorchidsociety.org/PDF/S...ySueBottom.pdf
explains how much to use (ie roughly 8 ppm Silicon)

I've not had one fall over yet.

They always grow towards the light so I turn the pot whichever way I want the spike to grow. You want it to grow straight up? Place a light source directly above it...

The flowers also mostly orientate themselves in the direction of the light so when they open most of them are facing the light source.

If they want to grow into the pot then just placing aything underneath to lift it up as you have done is what everyone does. If you wanted to stake it which admittedly I might have to start doing with cymbidiums then Camilles approach with a straight stick in the substrate and something to tie it to the spike is what I've seen done.

[Diane56Victor]

A speaker at my local club said he cuts up an old pot and places it in the media near the errant growth or spike and this guides it in the preferred direction.

[K-Sci]

The spikes snap like picking asparagus when they're new, but like asparagus, then become fibrous starting at the bottom and moving up the stem as it grows. When it is several inches long (less on small orchids), I begin tying the lower portions (not the fragile tip) to the stake, bending the bottom of the spike progressively toward the stake in steps as it grows until it is running up along the stake. When the spikes are small and too fragile to stake, any object you can put in its path can help divert its direction. Pieces of plastic pot inserted down the side of the pot work well.
-Keith

[tmoney]

thanks for input all! i guess gonna try and find some more info or a vid of this pot suggestion as it has been brought up a couple times. i did see a vid of the huge producer in the Netherlands and they have these special pots with channels in the sides....i assume you can’t get these on the retail market?