Reliably spiking phal with basal keiki?

[greenpassion]

I was just reading a post from someone who has a phal with a terminal spike. I've never heard of that, and until now have never seen one. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is a terminal spike a spike that grows out the top of the crown, rather than between layers of leaves.? The reason I'm curious is that I also read that phals with terminal spikes will throw basal kiekies (if I read that right) and I have a phal that is huge, spikes and blooms reliably, and she has a basal keiki. The spikes come up normally, and the basal keiki has at least one growing root. I'm curious about all this...

[MattWoelfsen]

Terminal spikes come from the crown of the plant. It will eventually die. To ensure its survival, it will grow keiki on the terminal spike and/or the stem of the plant. It is an interesting process, watching these keiki develop into mature plants. These plants will bloom sooner than a seed grown Phalaenopsis and it will be a duplicate of its parent.

[greenpassion]

Thanks for clarifying that for me

[No-Pro-mwa]

I have a noID white phal that grew a keiki from the flower spike. I think the reason it did was that we had a big winter storm so we blocked off the living room to hold the heat in the dinning room and kitchen. My poor plants got pretty cold in there and the phal was blooming at the time. Then it put out the keiki. It grew long roots before I finally had to cut it off because it got to heavy. I still have them both despite rotting the keiki twice. I call them mother a baby.

[PaphMadMan]

Terminal spike means it comes from the crown, the terminus of the stem, rather than from the more typical origin from a lateral bud above a leaf. It does not necessarily imply the death of the plant, although that crown will eventually die back over a few years since it can't grow more leaves and leaves do not live forever. Most healthy vigorous Phals should develop a new crown (or crowns) from what is commonly called a basal keiki, but is better thought of as just the normal branching growth habit of a mature Phal. Most Phals will eventually be multi-crown plants regardless of if they ever have a terminal spike unless some silly human insists on ripping the plant apart every few years.

[greenpassion]

Yes. I've had keikis that have grown on the spikes of my plants and once they've developed roots I detach them and potted them up. Actually there's probably four or five of my phals here that are actually growing up kiekes. But this basil kiekey I'm going to leave because I want to see if I can have a multi Crown plant.