keiki croaked in s/h

[Rhynno]

Yet another question from me lol,

I had a reed stem epi keiki with three one to one and a half inch roots that I detached recently and potted into a small clear plastic cup. I placed it on the heat mat with the other orchids and waited. The roots rotted! I took it and layed it on top of the leca and placed the whole thing into a plastic bag with a little water at the bottom of the bag where the cup sits.

Did I do anything wrong? Or should I have done something differently? I expect that I detached the keiki too early but I tried to put a small pot under the keiki to allow the roots to get used to the s/h environment. I doubt that I'll be able to save the little thing but I've got two other kekis going and I'd really love to be able to grow them :'(!!

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Ryan

[RosieC]

It's an interesting one.

It can be usual for roots to rot when moved to S/H and if a keiki had roots in the air they would be really adapted for dry rather than wet conditions so would be more likely to rot. However if you say you had a semi-hydro pot under the keiki and it's roots were already used to that it's suprising.

The best time to convert to S/H is when new roots nubs are appearing (completly new roots not just new root tips) and if it wasn't doing that at the time maybe that was a problem because nothing has grown to take the place of the rotted roots (though still not sure why they rotted if they were used to the wet).

I have a small Den keiki which is growing in a small pot of lecca but not in a s/h way (no resevoir). It seems to love it because the roots dry quickly and I can water every day with that tiny pot. I had initially moved it to bark and the roots (which had grown dry) started to look iffy and it wrinkled a lot.

Maybe this method is a way you can start them, then when brand new root growth starts add the resevoir and move them over to growing wetting.

[Rhynno]

Hi Rosie,

I hadn't thought of doing it that way but that's a great idea! I'm not sure that I'll get this keiki to live (even bagged in s/h it's growing puffball mould T_T I love this plant but it doesn't love me haha). Kinda weird though I mean I thought that this guy was an epi radicans hybrid which should be able to grow in just about anything including dirt (not that I'm keen to try it!).

I'll try that with the next two keikis ! I looked this morning and one of them are putting out a basal shoot instead of a keiki. The mama plant might live yet !

[RosieC]

Well I hope the mama survives, then in time you can try with other keikis.

I know John Blagg here on OB always transfers established pants to lecca but without a resevoir then waits until new root growth to add the resevoir.

That's where I got the idea to try with my den keiki which was strugling in bark and it works great as the roots are drying really quickly and watering every day has plumped it back up and I can see root tips growing again.