I Got a Keiki ......woo hoo ..what now

[justloveorchids]

Just discovered today One of my rescued Phals has a keiki

Any instructions on what to do now ?

[Anton]

Well, you can leave it there to flower, or when the roots are about a 1/4" long cut off the stem just below the keiki and pot it.

Depends on if you want clones of the plant you have or not.

There is another thread going on at present where we are discussing the pros and cons of this very subject.
Keiki or Subspike? What do you think?

[kmarch]

1/4 inch? I think I would politely disagree Anton. I'd recommend 2-3 inches.

[Anton]

I get em off quick when they are around 1/4" to 1/2" with good success.

[BillC]

Anton, you have just blown away all my ideas on potting keiki's. Further to that I have been recommending at least 2 inch roots to other members of the forum before removing keiki's fron the spike. I am now very confused.

Bill.

[Anton]

I have a Den kingianum that throws keikis like you wouldn't beleive and I have been removing keikis from it for the past 3 years when they get between 1/4" to 1/2 ".

Occasionally an inch if I haven't checked on them for a while or missed one in the middle of the "forest". Last season's keikis have buds everywhere at present.

May not work for everyone, but it does for me.

My Phal pulchra had 3 pups and I potted them with about 3/4" roots and they are thriving. I potted them about a month and a half ago.
I can post pikkies of them tomorrow if you like just to show you how well they are doing. You can see the full plant with pups on my Web site in the ORCHID section, under the sub heading , Phalaenopsis.

[kmarch]

Originally Posted by Anton

I get em off quick when they are around 1/4" to 1/2" with good success.

Anton, may I ask what constitutes "good success" in this instance? Is it havign them grow new leaves? Spike? i see youve grown the Dens for quite some time but the Phals only a very short time.

Phals and Dendrobiums are quite different in this instance namely because Dens have energy stores (in their speucobulbs/canes) and Phals do not. Whereas a Den might not need lots of roots I believe a Phal will.

[Anton]

Grow new leaves AND spike!

Whoops, which keikis, pulchra or kingies ?

About last September I took the present kingianum ones off, and have them growing semihydroponically, the pulchra, I only took them off about a month and a half ago, so don't expect much from them until next year, but they are growing raqpidly aqt present.

[sandra]

Great news there. I am sooooo looking forward and hoping one of my phals will produce a keiki. I've got quite a few dend keikis that I removed with less than an inch of root growth and so far, they're growing just as rapidly as the dends that I removed when their roots were 2" and longer. I keep them all in sphag which they seem to be loving. I haven't been lucky enough YET to have a phal keiki appear so I'm not sure if other rules apply. I would think, to be safe, to let it grow a good set of lengthy roots before removing. Congratulations.

[justloveorchids]

Hi Sandra

I cant tell you how surprised I was to find it
I only aquired the Phal 6 weeks ago in a very poor state .......i cut off dead roots and repotted it and have misted it and all the others every day with worm tea
There were 2 partially cut off spikes when i got it and because they were not dead i left them ......maybe thats why it produced a keiki Either way i am thrilled because then my daughter can have it in due course .......she is as Orchid nuts as me but without the same green fingers for rescue

I do not even know what colour the flowers are yet

[Anton]

Here's some examples of keikis I have.

The first shows a wide angle view of my Den kingianum with a keiki, and a closeup using my finger as a measuring guide. Normally I would have cut this keiki off and potted it before now, but as I have enough from this plant, I am just letting this one go.

As you can see the roots are not very long, maybe 1/2" max.

The other image is one of the keikis I took from my Phal pulchra in June, and it has trebled in size as have the other two from this plant which were taken off about a week later.