Three Flower Stems from one Grasshopper Bite

[dougr]

This is my first real thread and it may be encouraging for those who have had a spike disaster. My Wildcat Oncidium produced its third spike in the past twelve months. Unfortunately, a grasshopper ate over half of the newly formed bud which was about one inch long. I cut it off several days later and over the past several weeks, another spike started growing. Then another and finally a third spike. So, don't give up when disaster strikes. The first picture shows the cutoff spike with the others around it. The next two are other pictures which give more breadth. The white flower is a Cattleya with several 4 inch blooms and it also had six blooms in January of this year.

[EricaMarie]

Very nice! Glad you will have plenty of flowers for your trouble. Silly grasshopper. :P

[Bloomin_Aussie]

It seems to be a natural response for a lot of plants. I've had new growths chewed off some of my Dendrobiums by snails and shortly after the plants would produce 2 (or more) new growths to replace them.

[dougr]

By luck, I placed another large flowering plant, hibiscus, nearby and caught another large grasshopper chewing on a bud; bye, bye grasshopper. It turned out to be a sacrificial plant with daily flowers to spare.

[Leafmite]

Congratulations on all your new spikes!

[dougr]

Thanks, just watching every day now for the blooms to start popping.

[RosieC]

Not sure about flower spikes, but with growths it happens due to hormone changes. The growing tips produce some sort of hormone which tends to stop others (whether it actually stops or just reduces the number of others depends on the plant). When the growing tip is damaged, or when it stops growing naturally the hormone levels drop and suddenly the plant starts trying to produce new growths again, several might start at once while the hormone is low, then as they get growing they start producing it again and so the plant concentrates on growing them rather than starting any new ones.

At least that's how I've understood it, hopefully I'm right.

[dougr]

Thanks Rosie, when the blooms start, which should be any day now, I'll post a picture. My other Oncidium is dark red and has bloomed three times in the past twelve months with long spikes full of flowers. This one is "wildcat" with brown and yellow spots.

[TOMMYMIAMI]

This is awesome, you have really beautiful plant with some nice spikes!

[dougr]

Originally Posted by TOMMYMIAMI

This is awesome, you have really beautiful plant with some nice spikes!

Miami is the best for growing anything tropical; you must have quite a collection. In the early 60's, we lived in the Coral Gables area where anything planted did well. Also, a valuable lesson was not to eat or drink green coconut milk/meat.