Producing a Keiki on a Cut Phal Spike?
 

Good morning all,

I recently had some temperature troubles which led to bud blast on one of my phals. I ended up cutting the spike, and someone on another forum gave me the idea of putting the cut spike in a glass of water to see if it will make a keiki for me from the bit at the very end of the spike, which is still purplish green.

Has anyone here ever tried this? If so, any tips for me? I know this takes quite some time, and for now I'm enjoying the three small flowers I managed to salvage on the spike (they perked up a bit when I put them in water)... I'm willing to be patient :)

So, should I just keep it in plain water? Or should I maybe add a few drops of fertilizer?

Thanks everyone! :)

Hi , I have not had one keiki when in water tried it a couple of times usually the spike rots .
Might try laying it on a bed of Spag. see the post about the Dendrobium cane . Remove the covering from an unflowered node on the cane .
I doubt it would work from the tip of the cane probably to fragile . But might as well try . :)

Thanks, Gin. I've been doing some more reading and it seems kind of 'luck of the draw' unless your conditions are ideal. It seems like a fun experiment so I'm going to carry through with it just to see what happens. It would be nice to find some others who have had success with this though :) I'll have another spike to cut soon, so maybe I'll try that one on a bed of sphag and see what happens there.
I feel like a kid doing a science fair project-- I almost want to get out a cutesy notepad to write down by observations every day LOL.

I have a phal I got from home depot during the summer, its in deaths door step with 3 blooms. Its looks like there is something active around the crown area, perhaps a basal growth, dunno yet.

Anyhow ... I might try the spike thing too and see if I can a keiki, seems to be a hit & miss to get these tho' :hmm
Like to hear more from the both of you about what your success has been :)

Lagoon, if you do try this I'd love to hear how it goes for you! I want to log what happens with my spike just as a fun experiment and maybe play around and change some things with future spikes. Not quite sure how I'm going to document it yet... but we'll see! Mine has only been in water for about three days and if my understanding is correct it will take weeks before anything slightly noticeable happens, and months for any significant growth... That's if anything happens at all. LOL

:goodluck:

Hehe for sure, it'll be a fun little project for us over the cold winter :dance13:
Are you able to take some photo's? Keeping notes will help alot too.
I'll try to do both, who knows something may come of it. I'll be cutting my spike off today :evil:

Best wishes for your on going project :D

:waving

I know someone on another forum who managed to get a keiki to grow on a cut spike. He put the cut spike in distilled water with some Supethrive last march. He also recut the cut spike underwater, so that there was no air bubble getting into the cut. The water was changed about once a week. By June there was a little nub growing, and by august there were 4 leaves.

I think I'm going to try it too!! My phal finished blooming in september and 1 spike has a keiki while the other is doing nothing. Maybe I'll have fun with that one after xmas break...

YAY! I'm so excited that others are trying this too! I was advised to not use fertilizer as it would foul the water quicker but I'm still toying with the idea of putting in a few drops... I'm going to change the water weekly anyway. We'll see :)

Mmmmm, I don't think you will get a keiki from the spike. But like you mentioned, the flower spike of a phal. does last a good long time. Shave about 1/16 of an inch off the bottom every two or three days to keep it open to the water.

Keikis are produced on phal spikes. Generally at the first or second node on the spike nearest the plant itself. If your main plant crown rots, don't toss it, keep it around with just enough water to keep it alive. The roots will be healthy and it will generally start new plants either around the base of the plant itself, or on the freshest spike that was on the plant. Cut the spike between the 2nd and 3rd node on the flower spike, let dry and wait. By the time it's ready to cut off with a few roots you will have "waited" a couple of years.

You will find this hard to believe, but way back in time, because sowing seed meant scattering seed around the plant in the mossy areas to see if some would germinate, some gardeners used this method to induce more plants of phals. Using a large screwdriver, they would place it down in the center of the plant crown and twist, thereby killing the crown. Within a couple of month several new plants would start around the bottom of the plant. I never had the courage to try this, lol.

I'm trying the same thing! I bought a huge phal last night, and all but two blooms had fallen off (I buy the phals that are in bad shape cause I feel sorry for them lol) and it was so large that I couldn't fit it in my windowsill... so I cut the spike off one node below the blooming flower (which is probably wrong but oh well lol) and now I'm keeping it in water. I also bought a coconut today and got the milk out of it because i heard that if you put coconut milk on a spike it will encourage a keiki? I'm thinking about putting the coco milk in the spike's water... do you think that will help encourage a keiki?

In coconut milk, there are several plant growth regulators (PGR) and some of them, cytokinins, help plant to have new shoots, flower, and keikis. Cytokinin is the main PGR of commercial orchid keikis pastes. So it's better to have coconut milk than none (water only); however, coconut milk is a good nutrient solution so you're welcome fungi and bacteria to enjoy your party too. Add few drops of Physan or peroxide hydrogen to reduce contamination. Anyway, it's fun to try and learn nothing to lost. :goodluck:

I'm growing 2 Phal nodes too. I am also use coconut to enhance the producing keiki. The only different is I grow in vitro. So far they grow up a little bit. Not sure they become flowers or keikis. Just cross my fingers. :lol: :waving

Wow what a cool tip! Thanks newflasker. I have a coconut palm growing in my front yard about 10 feet away from the phals on my patio. We are so sick of coconut the nuts just rot on the ground. Maybe I should crack em open and mix it with some water and hydrogen peroxide and stick it in a spray bottle and give my phals a squirt now and then. Waddaya think?

Thanks for the wonderful info, newflasker. What kind of solution do you have in those jars, may I ask?

Gwenchanter, I was about to ask the same thing, lol. It seems logical... and maybe if we mist the stem with that solution then could it possibly encourage more than one keiki???

Also, what is the shelf life of coconut milk? I have the rest of the milk that I didn't use sitting in the fridge in a closed container, but is there a chance that it will spoil any time soon?

This is interesting - I have heard of people being able to get keikis on cut spikes. I've tried a few times myself with no success. However, I was rooting around the old archives of my orchid society and found the following little snippet:

"Synea Tan told us how she gets keikis to grow from Phalaenopsis flower spikes. She waits until the flowers on the inflorescence are wilted and then cuts the whole inflorescence off, cuts off the tip and puts the basal portion into fertilizer water -the same she uses for continuous fertilizing for all her orchids. She puts the glass with the flower stem under lights at about 25 degrees Celsius or more. She changes the water occasionally. Most of the stems will produce a keiki in 8 to 24 months."

I wonder if cutting off the tip does anything! I have never tried it, but it may 'trick' the plant into thinking that the spike is damaged and thus may push it to making a keiki...either way, :goodluck:

When you cut off the tip, you remove the apical meristem. This produces a hormone, Auxin, which prevents the growth of other apical meristems along the shoot. Auxin inhibits the cytokinin hormones. When you remove the apical meristem, the auxin is also removed, and the cytokinins, which control cell division and differentiation, may lead to the development of keikis.

please elaborate regarding the concentration of coconut water.
I mean do we just put the coconut milk in a sprayer and spray or dilute it?
how much of hydrogen peroxide do we add.

Newflasker...
 

Newflasker, how long it took from putting spikes into milk to the moment we can see on the photos? :)
Good luck, can't wait to see the results :)

Hi Ania,
It takes about 3 weeks to get shoots like in pictures. Then it takes about 6 weeks to get 2 small leaves but no root yet. You need to transfer them to new media without coconut milk to get root (plain media without cytokinin or you may add 1mg/l NAA if you have it). Took another about 2 months to get root. Keep growing until they are big enough to deflask if you can. My 2 shoots became big orchid seedlings and already deflask. So instead of throwing you Phal flower stems you can propagation them to get seedlings, especially they are rare and precious orchids. Cheers, good luck :) :twocents::twocents:

Newflasker, is the cocoanut milk you are using a processed source, like from a can of cocoanut milk, or is it from the seed? Then you say that you "transfer" to new media w/o cocoanut milk to get roots to grow. What is this secondary media?

Hi BikerDoc,
The right term is coconut water, coconut juice, clear not milky white. It's from fresh and young coconut. Orchid propagation and plant tissue culture use it to multiply shoots and callus because it contains many kind of hormone especially Cytokinin. The secondary media is a MS (Murashige and Skoog) media, a standard plant tissue culture media. You can use any medium you have without Cytokinin. In simple worlds, Cytokinin is good for shoot and Auxin is good for root. Too much Cytokinin prohibits root growing.

Can any one comment on use of coconut water as a spray to promote roots and shoots.If so at what dilution can it be used?

Interesting thread. Gotta try me some of this. Time to hit the bargain bin at the local BBS.

I have a phal I got from home depot during the summer, its in deaths door step with 3 blooms. Its looks like there is something active around the crown area, perhaps a basal growth, dunno yet.

Anyhow ... I might try the spike thing too and see if I can a keiki, seems to be a hit & miss to get these tho'
Like to hear more from the both of you about what your success has been

If I may!! I got this very sick Phal from a co-worker and I did surgory on it to try and save its life... its under forum thread ( 1 leaf wonder ) anyways!! I did cut off the spike that had 3 buds on it, 2 have sense died, 1 is still thinking of bursting open, I did notice this hub nub growth starting just below the sole surviving bud, I don't know what it is or what its doing, I am sure you all know..

This appears to be a growth extension of the main spike.
Depending on the health of the plant you may leave it for future blooms or cut the spike so the plant can store up energy for future spikes.
Hope this helps,
Al

Will this spike was removed from the plant over a week ago, guess its still a healthy spike, I didnt notice it when I cut it off..

Hi Newsflasker,

I have two little keikis growing on two Phal's spikes... Do you think adding coconut water will help them grow? If so, how often should I apply it (and how)?

Thank you so much!!

Regards,

Bego

Hi just let the mother plant feed them. wait till a good root system develops, then think of separating them.

Ok!! I'll do that!! Thanks!

Any updates?

bnegrete
 

If you have kikis on the flower stem of an established plant watch for new root growth, once you see the roots you can mist them to help maintain moisture in them. You can also mist hem with a 1/2 strength fertlizer to take the strain off the mature plant. Once they are showing several roots 2-3 "long you can gently remove them from the stem and pot them up. You now have a stem propagation of that plant which carries forward its name and ward, if any. I am not so diligent in removing the stem kikis so I have plants in bloom with kikis in bloom on them. Just be careful not to keep the crowns wet or you will rot them off. Also if the kikis leaves start to shrivel, they are not getting enough water , low humidity, so you may need to pot them up.