Potting or mounting phal keiki with aerial roots

[tmoney]

Originally Posted by WaterWitchin

I convert to a mount or off of a mount regardless of plant timing. The occasional setback? Yes, occasionally with mounts.

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ok, i gotta follow up then. we recently got a phal keiki that is quite developed with about 4 plants together and a huge rootball of aerial roots. none of the roots showed growing tips and there are no root tips poking out of the base, so the only thought was to mount it till spring and spray and wait till new growth. well now a couple of the leaves are yellowing at the tips and im afraid it might be struggling. so, what’s been your experience in this situation? im afraid if we put it in media the aerials will turn to mush, but at the same time leaving it on a mount like this is something we haven’t really successfully done yet, and we don’t wanna experiment with this particular plant. suggestions?? tia

edit, these are also our first foray into keikis, so there’s that....

[WaterWitchin]

First off, how about a picture? I'm having a hard time conceptualizing the keiki.

[YetAnotherOrchidNut]

For what its worth I think it is a myth that Phal/keiki air roots will rot if they are placed in media. It just seems implausible to me given how they grow in the wild and what keikis are for. Phals will send out air roots to seek purchase, and to seek water and nutrients. Why would it make sense that when they find what they need that they will rot? It just doesnt add up. Also keikis, the idea is that the keiki will at some point separate from the mother plant, fall somewhere and then root where it falls. It would not be an effective reproduction technique if the roots rotted instantly.

FWIW I have repotted many keikis. Two of my phals produce them regularly such that I almost always have at least one keiki on the go, and I always just put the whole thing in bark and it works out just fine, if any roots don't go in the bark its just because I couldn't figure out how to get them all in.

Maybe there is some sound basis for this perception that air roots should not be put in the media, but in my experience if you have good quality media and good watering practices it shouldn't make any difference.

[camille1585]

I also have a hard time visualizing the keiki... Is it one or several?

I have potted up many Phal keikis over the years (even without growing tips on the roots), and it's a myth that their roots are doomed to rot. I have learned a few things over the years though, and have a method that works well for me. Don't pot it into a moisture retentive media (like sphagnum), you will want to mimic the fast wet/dry cycles it got when growing aerially. For me that means potting them up in the same bark as Phals which have spent their lives in pots, and I often use slitted pots for extra aeration (but I'm also successful with normal pots). Use the smallest possible pot. I'll let them dry out a bit more than I normally do for the other Phals, and once I see new roots or active root tips, I start watering more frequently. Last year I added Kelpak to my protocol, and the new root growth starts even faster.

Originally Posted by YetAnotherOrchidNut

For what its worth I think it is a myth that Phal/keiki air roots will rot if they are placed in media. It just seems implausible to me given how they grow in the wild and what keikis are for. Phals will send out air roots to seek purchase, and to seek water and nutrients. Why would it make sense that when they find what they need that they will rot? It just doesnt add up.

It is actually known and studied that while orchid root structure (types of cells) is the same in the air or in a substrate they do adapt to the the environment they grow in. I read a paper a while back that explained
how a wet or dry environment is will change of the properties of the cells as they develop (number of cell layers in velamen, the structure of the cell walls…) The velamen of roots which develop in the air is often thicker (to hold more water), with a harder external layer to provide added resistance to dessication.

They then explained that when the growing root comes in contact with bark (or any other substrate) genes which control velamen development switch off early, leading to a thinner velamen layer, and often root hairs will be produced instead of the extra velamen cell layers. So with a thinner velamen and root airs, these pot grown roots would quickly dry out if exposed to the open air. Roots growing in water have an even thinner velamen, and the hard outer 'anti dessication' layer is practically absent...


I agree that in the wild they survive just fine, but the keiki roots will usually attach to the tree the mother plant is on (and not be buried in organic matter), and growing mounted is still not the same thing as being thrown into a very humid pot environment....

[Shadeflower]

This is the sort of scenario I would use wicking cord for,

You say the plant has lots of aerial roots. So if one of these aerial roots gets lost, it wouldn't matter because it has plenty more.

But you need to supply it with constant water.

So easy solution is to place a glass filled with rainwater under the aerial roots.

You want there to be a distance of about 10 cm's between the roots and the water surface in the glass.

Then pick a root and tie a knot around it with the cord, place the other end of the cord into the glass that is 10 cm's below.

You then need to check on it and find the right distance that keeps the root it is tied around in a moist but not wet state.

You will see what I mean if you try out different distances to the root. Like if you place the water really close to the root the root will stay really wet and bright green.

If you made the cord long enough that you can put the glass 30 cm away then the wicking cord will dry out completely by the time it has reached the top and the root will stay bone dry.

But this will vary based on the humidity in your home so start with 10 cm and if the root stays too wet then place the orchid 2 cm higher and so on till you have found a good level where the root stays sort of between green and white. Like this it will constantly be receiving moisture but never get wet enough to rot. And if it does rot then like I mentioned it will only be one root.

I'd recommend you try it. It certainly beats spraying it daily for the next few months which is what you are thinking of doing. Like this you just find the right height to keep the root at a good level and then you just check on it periodically. As the water level drops in the glass you just top it up. And within 6 months I guarantee the keiki will start producing new roots. Without you having to do any work at all.

The wicking cord on amazon.de
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[YetAnotherOrchidNut]

Originally Posted by camille1585

It is actually known and studied that while orchid root structure (types of cells) is the same in the air or in a substrate they do adapt to the the environment they grow in. I read a paper a while back that explained
how a wet or dry environment is will change of the properties of the cells as they develop (number of cell layers in velamen, the structure of the cell walls…) The velamen of roots which develop in the air is often thicker (to hold more water), with a harder external layer to provide added resistance to dessication.

...

I agree that in the wild they survive just fine, but the keiki roots will usually attach to the tree the mother plant is on (and not be buried in organic matter), and growing mounted is still not the same thing as being thrown into a very humid pot environment....

I am certainly not arguing that air roots are going to be exactly the same as media based roots, nor that they dont adjust. I am just arguing it doesn't have to be a recipe for rot (and I think you said the same thing in different words more or less :-). I can see some of the air roots i have tucked into the pot, and the newer growth from them is clearly different, I am just arguing that they wont necessarily rot if you put them into media.

I think the point about where a keiki attaches depends on if it is a spike keiki or a basal keiki. I would assume that spike keikis get blown off and thrown around and often end up rooting somewhere totally different from their mother plant.

Don't forget that in the wild you wouldn't necessarily even know that a plant started off life as a keiki unless you saw it growing next its mother plant, so I suspect there might be a bit of sample bias on that perspective. I have been in the Singapore Botanical Gardens when a storm came up and I have no problem imagining the wind ripping the keikis off their spikes in the right circumstances.

FWIW this is a keiki i repotted about 8/10 weeks ago. The air root which I stuffed into the pot is the vertical root in the center, and is typical green color, the horizontal root is new and is white. No rot. The vertical root you see sticking down is a new root tip growing out of the pot, i hang my pots inside cache pots so there is an air chamber underneath them and some room for it grow straight down. You can see some root forking on the former air root, which I attribute to kelpmax. I also use bottom heat on my keikis when I first root them.



BTW, not trying to be argumentative here. I just think the "air roots will rot if you put them in media" thing is overblown. Maybe if its horribly the wrong media. If its big chunky bark and you have good watering regimen and conditions then probably not.

[WaterWitchin]

Whether aerial roots will rot depends. Like Camille says, you move aerial roots all into sphagnum, they won't adapt well. You move them into semi-hydro, they won't adapt well. There are ways around it, but we don't know what tmoney's plant looks like yet... sounds sort of like a bunch of basal keikis all wound up together maybe? Maybe basal keikis that have been growing that way a looong time, thus aren't really keikis anymore. Who knows?

We don't know what media tmoney wants to grow in either. It would be best to see what he has and what he wants to do before offering too many options. And if tmoney has four plants (keikis) all wrapped up together in aerial roots and none in media, that's still a whole different scenario to give good advice. Plus says there aren't any basal roots, which makes no sense to me. His comment about not wanting the roots to rot is likely based on the fact he's a fairly new grower, and not quite understanding the subtleties of doing this yet.

That's my so far.

[Shadeflower]

don't worry Yaon,
most newcomers like to declare their methods and beliefs. Camille I should imagine is most used to it by now.

And you will find lots of things that new members have just heard, eg the aerial root myth.

If you have grown orchids long enough you will know what's what no matter what someone else says but I understand the desire to convince the board it is that way. I do it a lot

I think you and camille are saying the same things, camille just elaborated in more detail.

She is saying an aerial root can adapt to anything that is moister than air.

Furthermore an aerial root that is adapted to a very wet media will struggle to adapt to a dry media. That is the only difference however they are two completely different scenario's.

[tmoney]

hey all,


sorry to mods, and anyone else on the board. im starting to realize i can jack threads

but wow, i appreciate all the perspectives, and my take away right now is pot it up in our usual stuff, don’t drown it and all should be good! here’s a pic of the plant in question. not a great pic, but what i can do right now with the ipad and light. i think ill start soaking some bark and pot it up tomorrow....

edit, there’s about this many roots you can’t see on the backside. and of course i suck and didn’t get the yellowing leaf tips too well

[Shadeflower]

tmoney, don't worry about posting random stuff.
I'd like to think that is one of the good things about OB.

There's anothe forum that is very strict, it is frowned upon to post something not related.

Here it is much more relaxed and far more information gets posted a a result. You can either take that as a good thing or a bad thing. I'd like to think it's a good thing.