phal keiki - multiple crowns?

[shaelyn]

Hi guys!

I used some keiki paste on my phals a while back, and two of my plants turned up successful! each has two keiki growing. however, while the bottom keiki on each stem has one crown growing, the top ones have gone wild. I guess I'm asking if this is normal/okay:

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...s/100_2906.jpg

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...s/100_2905.jpg

[Bill U.]

To be honest, I have never heard or seen this happen. I am wondering if your phal was going into growth mode, in addition to the hormone paste being applied. Are all of the crowns developing from the same base? If not, it could be putting out a small shoot to have all of the keikis grow from? Hopefully that is the case and each will produce its own roots and then you have lots of keikis!

If not, then you have some very interesting plants that should produce twice as many flowers right off the bat if all of the crowns bloom at the same time! Haha!

[CPKidofAugusta]

I've heard that can happen if the apical bud is damaged before the keiki paste is applied. I've even heard of cutting off a small portion of the bud in order to produce multiple clones.

[Island Girl]

This can, and does happen, fairly often, it seems (or maybe ppl only post the wierd ones? ) ... Kieke paste can do some wierd things... Awhile back, one of our members "SlipperGirl" posted about what to do with her 'growth' after using kieke paste on one of her 'chids (added link below). This result, albeit a little extreme, apparently happens from time to time. From what I've gathered from other people's results - and it appears to happen quite a lot - is that it ends up somewhere between one singlular 'normal' kieke and the monster that "SlipperGirl" created when she used the paste.

http://www.orchidboard.com/community...se-keikis.html

Personally, I've never used kieke paste... Actually have a tiny, tiny tub of it, but it might have gone bad at this point... I dunno, as I haven't even tried it (got it off ebay last year for a decent price, on sale... But was dealing with mites at the time, so I wasn't gonna stress anything out anymore than need-be, and then, I started seeing what ppl were getting when they used it, so I held off...

[RosieC]

Like Mary I've seen quite a few pictures of keiki paste producing oddities like this. I think the excess hormones used can be prone to doing weird things.

[shaelyn]

interesting...alright. I'll let them grow for now.

[kindrag23]

@IslandGirl holy cow that was crazy looking.

[bernardean]

I have an unnamed supermarket-purchased orchid. The flowers are small and white. It produces a couple of new crowns every year--no hormone paste, only regular fertilizing and sun. Consequently, it is in flower nearly year-round, but it is becoming quite large so I shall either have to put it in a larger pot or divide it.
In my reading I haven't seen anything about this sort of growing habit. This is the second of this sort of phalaenopsis that I have had, so it's no aberration. Anybody else have this type? Is it a specie?

[Bill U.]

Bernardean,

Not to come off as rude, but are you sure that it is a phalaenopsis? To be in bloom just about year round and producing multiple crowns does not sound like a typical phal's growth cycle... Once you make 5 posts, you are allowed to post pictures here on OB, otherwise a link to a photo-sharing site, like Flickr, etc, would be helpful to have an image to see what you are talking about.

The only thing that I can think of is that I know there are some species that will produce keikis like crazy from spikes- phal. equestris, being one of them, but normally the supermarket-orchids are not species- they generally tend to be some sort of hybrid that is tough to try and withstand the abuse it receives from the process of making it from the nursery grower to you.

Again, pictures would be lovely

[StonieOats]

One of my phals is a beast and is out of a flower maybe a month out of the year. It sends up spikes like crazy so I'm having to cut them back now just to keep it contained