Help with Keiki on Dendrobium
 

Okie dokie so I at the beginning of the summer I was wishing I could get a keiki off one of my plants but didn't expect to get one >.< Hahaha imagine my surprise a few months ago when lo and behold there was a little green thing coming OUT of the main cain on my perty little dendro plant. Now this thing is doing freaking great but there is only one little problem.... I have no clue how to safely get it off the plant :scratchhead: So a little help in this area would be great! It's ready to come off I'm pretty sure of that it has about 6-7 roots coming off of it and is going on 6" long!!!!

My next question is going to be how do I get it going to a good start after I get it off of the parent. It is grown in semi hydro and is loving it but can I put the keiki in it when it comes off or do I need to start it on something else? Help in this area would be great

And last but not least since it is going on November and it has expended the past few months producing the keiki would it be safe to still try and get it to flower? I don't want to stress it out by putting it under even more stress. Comments in this area would be greatly appreciated.

Oh I lied that wasn't the last one I was going to ask and this one probably will be the stupidest one. As long as I am careful removing the keiki from the parent I wont damage it will I? :scratchhead:

Hi Kagura,
Sure would help if you have a pic to post. You don't say what type of dendro you have. If it's one of the hard cane ones like I have you should have no trouble with it. When I removed my keikies I waited till the roots were about the size you say yours are. Cut the piece of cane with about 1" on both sides of the keiki and dusted all cuts with cinnamon let dry for about a day. Potted up in a small pot till roots were all over. I have some nice chids blooming now that were keikies anout 1 1/2 years ago. Mother plant is still going strong. Good luck. Nice growing to have a keiki :D

I was going to post some pictures but my camera takes pictures that are like 2000 something odd pixels by like 3000 something odd pixels and like 1.7-2.5 mbs per a picture. So that's kindof stinkin right now.

The wierdest thing about it is how low it it's. It's like almost at the bottom of the cane. And yes it's a hard cane dendro. At first I thought it was a new cane coming out except it's coming right OUT of the main cane of the plant and it's got some roots on it. I'll probably give it a few more weeks up there before I take it off but it's getting freaking huge. Do keiki's normally grow that fast??? But my main concern is damaging the parent plant when I take it off. And what do the plants look like when they start putting out new canes? I want to make absolute sure that it is a keiki (pretty sure it is) because it would suck to take it off and be like :shock: woops!

But anyone doesn't know if I will be able to still get my dendro to flower? It's thriving right now and looks oh so happy. Much happier than any of my stinking Phals look.

And what could be the cause of a dendro throwing a keiki? It's in my room over my bed. I have a grow light running vertically beside the plant and it's about 4 inches away from the plant. The humidity in the room is usually around 30-50% and the temp in the room is a constant Low of 68/ High of 83 everyday all year long. LoL. Either way I know that it's the perfect set up for the dendro's because mine is so happy. LoL. >.< anyway I keep opening cans of worms with my posts. Get rid of one question put out like 15 more. I'm so bad

Hardcane dendros can put out new canes from fairly high up on the cane, and they do tend to chuck out keikis a lot as well. Keikis will generally come out of where the -flowers- normally come out. If it's too high up the cane that the roots would look ugly, i'd take it off (without hurting the mother cane). If it's fairly low and wouldn't look too bad as just another growth on the plant, i'd leave it.

If you don't want it to grow too tall,just CUT the top of the main cane off at the level you want,as they can become too tall to handle.

This message is for Kagura.
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