Root Cloning Gel & KLN overkill?

[dianecty]

Hi! I'd like to say that I really appreciate all the replies I have received to my endless questions. I am proud to say I haven't massacred any orchids recently.

My question is for the orchids that are still alive despite my massacre. They are rootless. I have recently been watering them in KLN and fertilizer solution. If I use a root cloning gel and then water them with the KLN fertilizer solution, is it going to be too much?

Is the cloning gel going to get washed off by my watering and so it is just useless? Do I apply the cloning gel only once or do I have to do it once a week or something?

I was planning to place the plant in some sphag in a styro cup with holes on the sides and then put the whole cup in another styro cup with no holes - filled with water. I read this somewhere on this site. I was hoping to create humidity and that that would create roots.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!!

[Ray]

Yes, overkill. Both products contain some of the same synthetic rooting hormones, and it only takes a relatively brief exposure for them to take effect. The cloning gel is really intended for use on flower spikes to initiate keiki formation anyway.

That styro cup thing makes no sense whatsoever. Putting a perforated cup inside of a solid one full of water is like putting it in the solid one only, as the water will enter through the holes.

Try this:

• Get a bucket of tepid water and add a teaspoon of K-L-N to it.
• Submerge the entire plant for about a half hour or more.
• Place a clump of saturated sphagnum or paper towel in one corner of a clear plastic bag.
• Place the plant in the other corner - with no contact with the moisture source.
• Close the bag, and put it somewhere shady and warm.

Alternately, if you pot the plant up, having soaked the medium well before doing so (unless you use sphagnum, then it's simply "moisten lightly"), you can put the entire thing in a bag instead.

If a few weeks, it'll be growing roots and you're good to go.

[dianecty]

Hi! What I meant was - the cup with the holes would not touch the cup with the water.

I tried sphag and bag to no effect. That's way I want to try another method. Do you have another method you could suggest?

[quiltergal]

Fertilizing a rootless plant is pointless, so I'd quit doing that. How long did you try Sphag-N-Bag with a KLN soak? The root regeneration process that could take a month or longer depending on how bad the plant is. If they are really bad sometimes nothing will bring them back. (Whisper the word "trashcan" to it and see if that doesn't promote some activity.)

[dianecty]

So I guess sphag and bag is the only way, huh?

[Ray]

Diane - think about what it's supposed to do.

The rooting hormone is a bonus only, accelerating things, if you're lucky.

The plant wants to grow new roots and survive. What you're trying to do is give it the opportunity to do so.

Left by itself, the plant will lose moisture to the environment. By immersing it in a saturated environment - the humid bag - the drying driving force is reduced, giving it time to recover.

It's as simple as that.

[dianecty]

that's the problem I guess. I put the plant in the ziplock bag with moist sphag. Nothing happened even after 1 1/2 months. After that, mold started to grow. I would open the bag every day just to let fresh air in.

Maybe KLN is really a necessity for the plant to grow roots.