Potting Keikis

[The Orchid Kid]

Hi

I have my Dendrobium 'Siam Jewel', which I pretty much killed now giving off lots of Keikis! I have about 8 of them of differing sizes. The biggest ones have about one inch growth of leaf and root.

My questions are

1. Should I repot now or wait till Spring?
2. Some of the oldest ones have died off and I can see the root tips gone black - why is this? are my others at risk if I do not pot on soon?
3. Is coconut husk ok as a medium to grow them in? I use this for all for mature orchids.
4. I have seen some people trim off the cane with the keiki and plant it with this bit of cane attached still - is this best practice?

Any other Keiki tip are more than welcome too!

thanks

[orchidsarefun]

Coco chips become soggy quickly and take forever to dry out as they age. Phal-type dens don't like that. I would use medium bark instead.
Also- too many keikis is typically a symptom of overfertilisation in certain dens.
Dens like to be "underpotted" - so use a small pot. You can repot at any time.
Generally speaking roots on keikis should be about 2-3 inches long before you gently twist the plant off and pot.

[WhiteRabbit]

Yes, 3" of roots at least, unless parent is dead...

I grow a den-phal in chc mix fine, I think it would be fine for the keikis.

[POLKA]

Well, to me, your parent plant appears dead -- that is the reason this one gave keikeis all up and down the cane. Usually a sign of dead roots / dead cane. It has happened to me.

I would pot them up in little pots with no smaller than medium bark, with other chunky stuff. You could even pot them all in a single azalea (think wide and short /shallow) like a community pot. These plants have little resources left to them, cause it appears your canes are yellow / brown -- not green. So no need to keep them on the momma anymore. They can't get bigger on the reserves that were once there, but is not anymore.

You will likely save some or most of them. Just don't overwater them. Cut them apart, cane and all is okay, and set them up in their pot (s). Then just keep them warm, and slightly moist.

Hope this helps.
Take care
Rex

[The Orchid Kid]

thanks everyone. The canes looked like this about 10 months ago, but continue to pop out keikis! I think I will take the biggest ones off this weekend and keep the smaller ones on for a bit to see if they continue to grow or not.

do keikis generally like a drier medium then, compared to an adult of same species?

[POLKA]

Well -- maybe

I'm of the opinion that they both should be drier than we tend to grow them. About two years ago, I put all mine in 8 or 12 inch pots with fist sized lava and other rock stones, setting the plant on top of them, and then pouring pea gravel or expanded shale around them -- maybe only a couple of inches. They dry fast, and bloom twice a year reliably -- I'm in a greenhouse I should add.

Take care
Rex

[TOMMYMIAMI]

Just an idea - I do agree roots should be at least 3" or longer, and I had quite a few keikis this summer to pot with long roots. For mobile dendros I did use aussie gold mix, and iit seems to work great, for other dendros I did buy special dendro seedling mix, which is mix of charcoal, small bark, perlite and coconut chips, this one also worked great. I had one cane from mobile dendro that broke, and it had tiny little mini keiki, I did not think it will make it, but I decided to use smallest 2 inch pot I had, and placed the whole cane into the aussie gold, with keiki on the old cane, not touching the mix at all. This was some 2 months ago, now the keikis roots are growing into the mix itself and keiki is double in size! So maybe you can do this also. Few pics for demo.