How to get a keiki to root

[firesurfer]

I am new to the Orchid world but I have quite a few Phalaenopsis. I have had some for many years without any flowers but with massive roots, which I love. (I actually had one attach itself to my bedroom wall) Anyway, I work part time for a grocery store that sells them & when the flowers start to droop they will either mark them way down to sell or just toss them in the trash. Needless to say, I CANNOT allow them to go into the trash so I "rescue" them. I am getting quite a collection!! Down to my question...One of the dieing orchids I rescued from the trash has a keiki on the flower stem but no roots. I really don't want to loose this plant & especially the keiki. I have been misting it every few days with hopes that a root will appear. My question is: Am I doing the right thing or would it be better if I put some moss around the base of the little leaf? or is there some kind of vitamin I can spray it with? ..Thanks in advance!

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[shahrezsyed]

well, firstly, is the plant itself healthy? Is the potting medium staying wet for too long or anything like that?
If the plant is healthy then simply wait. The keiki will grow more then it'll grow roots as well.
And to get your phals to flower, you need to give them lower temperatures during the night.
And do post pictures of your collection and the keiki.

[firesurfer]

No, the plant is not very healthy. It looks like it is a last ditch effort to survive. It also has a new flower shoot just above the keiki but the "parent" flower shoot never opened. I think it went into shock. The bottom leaves are withering & dieing. The medium is quite damp. I know they dont like a lot of water. I will take it out of it's original glass container & put it in a different pot with hopes that it will dry out before it completely dies. As soon as I can figure it out, I will try to post pic's.
Thank you for your help!!!

[Lady_Vamp]

In Canada, we have keikiroot it's a rooting hormone for keiki, but I don't know if the company sells it in the US. I'm sure that if it doesn't, you can find a similar product in your country.

Plant Hormones Canada

I hope it helps!

[jrodpad]

Firesurfer,

I am by no means a phal expert, but here is what I would do: (1) try and keep the mother plant alive at least until the keiki can push out a few roots - including unpotting, trimming away dead and rotting roots, potting back into fresh, prepared media in a new pot that is the right size for the remaining, healthy roots, and giving the mother plant lower light and higher humidity until it looks a bit healthier; (2) at the same time I would soak a bit of sphagnum moss ina dilute solution of Dyna-Gro's K-L-N rooting concentrate and then tie a small clump of the moss to the base of the keiki where you would expect the roots to form; and (3) make sure that the moss stays damp until you see evidence of roots. I've had success in the past with forcing a phal keiki to throw out roots using the method described above in (2) and (3), but it takes time and a bit of effort to keep the sphag moist.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

- J

[firesurfer]

Thank you everyone for your wonderful advise!. I took the plant out of its original pot & the roots actually looked pretty good. there were some dark almost black ones but they were strong & not soft or slimy. I was unable to pull them from the clump so I chose to leave them alone for now. I will keep a close eye on them. I misted the keiki & used a small craft paintbrush to brush on some rooting hormone then wrapped the base of the leaf in moss. I put it in my greenhouse & will check on it daily. (still trying to figure out how to send photo's..not computer savy.)

[Bud]

take pictures of the orchid plant
make sure to put the orchid pictures in a file envelope in your pictures folder
go to OB site
click on "Go Advanced"
scroll down and click on "manage attachments"
click on "browse", then choose the picture to load inside your picture files and the orchid file envelope; then click on "upload"
then click on " submit "

[Pilot]

Plant hormones Canada does in fact sell to the US, most easily through Amazon. Works well!

[shahrezsyed]

you need to somehow remove the damp media. Less roots is better than mushy roots.

[firesurfer]

Finally, here is a picture of the keiki along with some of my other orchids...all rescued from the trash. As you can see, I don't limit myself to just orchids. I just can't see something of beauty being wasted.