Can one-cane dendrobium divisions survive??

[tansyflower]

I have previously seen one-cane dendrobium divisions for sale (not often, but occasionally). I was under the impression that when you divided dendrobiums (and most orchids) you should aim for at least 3-4 healthy canes?

What is the chance that these one-cane divisions would survive??

[Bolero]

I think they would survive ok with the right care, there is no reason they couldn't.

The reason you want 3 or 4 canes is that they provide more vigorous growth and they can flower from that size. One cane should be fine but not ideal if you want flowers really soon.

What kind of Den is it?

[delphiguy]

as long as the canes are healthy it should do fine. that is usually what you'll find in sale
here locally for cuttings. and I usually do that also when I need to rescue a particular
den, i take the healthiest cane.

[tansyflower]

I'm actually not completely sure of the types (yet). I think mainly hard canes, mostly NoIDs. I have the opportunity to buy a local collection which someone has inherited, but included is a heap of one cane divisions. I need to talk to them further to ascertain how these divisions have come about, whether the original owner divided them or the person selling.

I was just curious as to whether these divisions had any chance of surviving, as I was under the impression that divisions with less than 3-4 canes were pretty risky.

[Bolero]

I am sure there is a little more risk but hard canes are tough plants and they should survive for you no problems provided you give good culture to the plant.

Everything we grow has some risk but those plants are pretty tough really.

[digitalgate]

one cane can survive but it depend on the cane is healthy / disease/virused . In either case , it will be slow growing. That is why i prefer 3 or 4 cane when come to propagation.. Soft cane as the word suggest it is a little softer . you can propagate by 10cm cutting of a single cane. Hard cane has to propagate by at least one cane. Use low light and warm environment to let it grow keiki. Not all cane will keiki, sometime they just don't. They might be too weak to start with.

[Andrew]

Are you sure those 1 cane divisions are not potted up keikis? While single cane divisions will survive, I find it odd that anyone would actually divide them down that small.

[kmarch]

Though I agree with those above who suggest it is possible, I personally avoid divisions that small (assuming they actually are divisions and not keikis as Andrew mentioned). For me personally they take too long to reestablish themselves and get growing good again.

[Sugar Magnolia]

I bought one cane of an Epidendrum orchid and it's doing ok. Don't know if it's anything similar, but it's another cane orchid. I am not very educated on this one yet. Someone was selling divisions on ebay and I bought the smallest (about 5") for $2 just to check it out. It's gonna take forever to grow up, but I don't think I needed more than one.

[Stelios]

Although i usually try to buy multicaned (is it a correct term?) Dens there were 5-6 cases that species dens were only available as seedlings or keikis of only one cane in a 2.5cm pot. So far they are doing great and there are no signs that they are too week or something, they even managed to grow some more leaves and one of them is shooting a new growth from the base.

[digitalgate]

Originally Posted by Andrew

Are you sure those 1 cane divisions are not potted up keikis? While single cane divisions will survive, I find it odd that anyone would actually divide them down that small.

it all depend on the plant, hit and miss most of the time. I would not recommend it , 3 or 4 cane would be the recommended number.

[tansyflower]

I think some may be potted keikis, but a lot are one cane divisions. I have seen one, and it is definitely a division.

I think the person who inherited the collection (not an orchid person) divided them down. She said she was in the process of "repotting".

[Bolero]

Well it's a difficult thing to be sure of growing but like others have stated above it's always better to have more canes.

[tansyflower]

I was wrong, the single canes are keikis (just big ones).

Do hard cane one-cane keikis have a fairly good survival rate?

[Bolero]

Yes they have an excellent survival rate, I have grown them easily. Not very demanding at all. But that's my experience.

[digitalgate]

Originally Posted by tansyflower

I was wrong, the single canes are keikis (just big ones).

Do hard cane one-cane keikis have a fairly good survival rate?

if it is cheap to buy. why not?

[Stelios]

i got some species den for just 5Euro and they really took off. I think that paying 20E for a flowering size den with 3-5 canes is decent however by paying 5E for a single or double cane you get 4 species instead of one. Maybe this isn't applied to lucky members from US and Australia... but i have to import most of my plants from UK, Germany, Netherlands and Italy, by getting the small ones i economize on freight, the plants are not in danger of braking from shipment handling etc. Also a grown plant can more easily get shocked when shipped to a different country due to the conditions, and don;t forget that it is used to a culture program for a few years from the grower that if changed might lead to trouble (with some demanding species).
I think that if you pick up a plant from a store you should go for a bigger one but when importing it's better to get a smaller plant that will be established under your care. It also gives bragging rights to say you got it as a single can and thrived to a large speciment

[digitalgate]

I have many single cane Dendrobium that grew into adulthood but a lot died along the way. I do find Dendrobium phal type keiki the best and grow the fastest. Species tend to put out way too many keiki some time 2 or 3 per cane. This result in slow growing.

[11Orchid126]

If your one cane dendrobium survived and thrived, it may take three or more years before it will bloom. If you have the time to wait, that's fine.

[tansyflower]

Keikis tend to bloom straight away, often off the first cane.

Anyway, the collection I was looking at ended up being too expensive. They wanted a relatively high prices for all of them, including the one cane keikis (most of whom weren't potted, but weren't attached to plant). There were only a handful of named ones.