What strange growth did Keiko Power Pro Create?

[theloyalplum]

I say to go whole hog on it and cut it loose and subject it to more Keiki stuff. If I remember correctly from my professor, lab propagation of plant cells generally starts with a callus of undifferentiated cells that is then subjected to cytokinin solutions. The resulting shoots would begin to produce auxins necessary for root growth and you'd have genetically identical plants! In your situation, you would probably be replicating the mericlone propagation that a bunch of orchidists(?) do around the world, except on one plant. Besides, what do you have to lose, Victor?

[0rchidJoy]

For anyone who wants to follow this, I'm posting new pictures as my little mutant grows. Attached are some new pictures taken today. The shiny on the growth is not Keiki Power Paste, it's just the waxiness of this growth, though there is some residue on the stem.

Enjoy. I'm really interested in whether it will amount to anything.

[Stray59]

Orchidjoy:
How intriguing! Your "blob" sort or resembles a protocorm of gigantic size....bizarre! I like that you are interested in finding out what it is going to do - sometimes the mystery of the "wait and see" approach adds to the excitement of growing orchids. You may never see such development again (or if you overuse your Keiki power paste a lot, you might see it too much!) but, if the parent plant is not highly valued or particularly rare, I would do the same - If you really like the parent, I would just keep an eye on the quality of leaf texture, color and growth rate - then should one of these start to "go south" you may want to cut it off. You should have some prior indicators that the plant is suffering and deal with the growth at that time. But I want to thank you for posting this - that is one weird little sucker.
Best of luck - keep posting pics, so we all know what is going on with it!

[0rchidJoy]

Thanks for your reply Stray59. You got me looking at pictures of various protocorms and different stages of development. I think you're right, it looks an awful lot like picture C on this page:
http://ejournal.sinica.edu.tw/bbas/c...Bot524-09.html
And figure B on this page:
PLS023F2:A simple and efficient protocol for the mass propagation of Cymbidium mastersii: an ornamental orchid of Northeast India- Open-i

[Stray59]

OrchidJoy:
It will be interesting to see if the various tissue cells will differentiate into leaves, stems and roots. If it were to just continue spewing forth raw cell tissue like it appears to be doing now, then I would be tempted to remove it and treat it as a protocorm, and see if the cells could be triggered into forming the various structures once the cell bundle is thoroughly micro-dissected as would occur in the flasking process.
My bet is that, left as it is, the growth will probably not differentiate............but then not knowing is the interesting part, isn't it?
There is also the thought that the additional doses of the Keiki paste has triggered uncontrolled, non-productive cellular growth, which is basically a form of cancer; if that is the case, there will be no differentiation, just continued growth and eventual damage to the plant, as the growth would just remain a parasite basically.
Time will tell......again, thanks for the post and pics!

[vjo]

What is this doing now? I hope you left it on so we can see what develops.

[0rchidJoy]

Originally Posted by vjo

What is this doing now? I hope you left it on so we can see what develops.

Hi VJO,

I was actually taking pictures of this growth this morning. In the past week or two it's really been taking off. It appears that it may have a spike coming out of that growth, but we'll have to wait and see if it amounts to much.

The plant is still quite healthy and not showing any signs of stress (YAY!).

I've attached some recent pictures. It's all been really interesting to watch!

[lotis146]

That's fascinating, thank you for keeping us posted! If those do indeed develop into spikes you will have a fabulous show. I had a Phal that was suffering (dehydration, my fault), still had a green spike, started a keiki and a new branch. Mother died, spike started to, I cut keiki near new branch and put in bottle of water with fert & KelpMax. Keiki started a spike, gave up, new branch blasted a bud. Now today keiki has new little leaf, possibly a root nubbin, & the new branch just might be growing a keiki itself... these orchids can do some fabulously fascinating things.

Here's to the continued success of yours!

[0rchidJoy]

Wow. That's crazy about your keiki!

I have keikis started on another plant, a Phal. Bright Peacock. One spike has one keiki on it and another spike on the same plant has 2 coming from the same node (too much paste again I think). The pictures of those are attached.

[ula]

Keep your mutant growing, maybe you can get an awarded keiki .