keiki paste and vandas

[smweaver]

Does anyone know whether the keiki paste (rooting/growth hormone) that's commonly used for phalaenopsis will also work on vandas? My V. merrillii has at least ten keikis growing around it, and although a few of them are definitely approaching flowering size, all of them seem quite content to remain freeloaders in life and not develop any roots of their own. I would like to try something (anything!) to get the keikis to start rooting so that some of them can eventually be detached from the long-suffering mother plant (okay, she doesn't really appear to be suffering, but I have a sneaky feeling that she might be inclined to be more productive with her flowers if she didn't have all of the cursed keikis cropping up). Does anyone have any ideas that might help? Thanks!

Steve

[rastafouni]

Hi steve,
I would love to see that ! 10 keikis !
I have no idea about this keiki paste, sorry. I do have about the same feeling about flowering with all that keikis : maybe the plant will save "energy" to product flowers without them. But I read on a book that it's better to wait that keikis bloom at least one time before separate them from mother plant (for vanda genus). Don't know if it's true but it's in this book. Usually if there are 3 , or more of course, roots on each separated parts of the plant, all of those parts survive well.
If you have time to make a pict...