When to free the keiki

[Rothrock42]

I got the one stick of Pleurothallis restrepioides 'Dragonstone' as a raffle prize at my local society meeting. It was pretty dry and curled up.

A month later and I'm getting a lot of good root growth and a new plant off the base. AND a sweet aerial keiki!



I'm wondering how long I should let it develop before moving into the medium? And how would I go about it?

I'm keeping it on a windowsill that has really high humidty (75% to 90%+). I'm still thinking of wrapping the roots with a little moist sphagnum.

Any tips or advice?

[samfish]

I have had good luck with Pleurothallid keiki, misting the roots daily (but not wrapping with sphagnum), and waiting until a second growth emerges. When the second growth starts roots, I detach and repot.

Adding some Sphagnum to these roots is also fine, as long as you make sure it doesnt stay too wet at the base of the original leaf, and rot the original leaf.


Looks like you got 2 plants for the price of 1


[QUOTE=Rothrock42;797662]I got the one stick of Pleurothallis restrepioides 'Dragonstone' as a raffle prize at my local society meeting. It was pretty dry and curled up.

A month later and I'm getting a lot of good root growth and a new plant off the base. AND a sweet aerial keiki!



I'm wondering how long I should let it develop before moving into the medium? And how would I go about it?

I'm keeping it on a windowsill that has really high humidty (75% to 90%+). I'm still thinking of wrapping the roots with a little moist sphagnum.

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[Ray]

My general rule of thumb is to wait for there to be about 4" of total root length - 1 @ 4', 4 @ 1", etc..

[PaphMadMan]

I would keep them together for now. That one leaf is supporting both the keiki and basal growth, and both will develop better for it.

[Rothrock42]

Thanks for the tips. I'll wait until those roots get more grown out.

Any tips for how to separate it when the time does come? Will it sort of just snap off?

[Tindomul]

Pleuros are great at making kiekies. Hope it all turned out well.