Number of blooms on phal

[latsyrc]

I have lots of different varieties of phalaenopsis, which I've bought from different sources. I've gotten several of them to bloom over the past couple of years, and I've noticed that I only ever seem to get two flowers per spike. I also have a dendrobium that blooms nicely, which gets at least six flowers each time. I know there are phals out there that have more blossoms at a time, so I'm wondering if I've just picked the wrong ones, or is there something I should do differently to get more flowers per spike?

[norris]

What types are you growing? Could be growing conditions are not quite what the plants need, for example, amount of light, and fertilizer.

[terry_sealey]

A picture would help to give a better answer but without one two things spring to my mind. First some types of phal, instead of having a spike with lots of flowers, produce a very small number of blooms at a time which die off and are replaced by a succession of flowers produced as more buds form at the end of the spike.

If this is not the case with yours them I would suspect that the plant does not have enough light to produce a full spike.

[kmarch]

Yeah it all begins with the breeding. Some phal species (like violacea or heiroglyphica) only bear one or 2 flowers at a time where as others (like schilleriana or stuartiana) have branching inflorescences with dozens of flowers.

Culture is certainly important too. A strong plant receiving good culture produces better than a weak one but not even perfect culture can make a 2-flowered phl produce a dozen flowers.

If you tell us what the phal is or what the parents are we can probably back track the breeding to see what the species parents are. This will tell us what to expect for flouriferousness.

[mehitabel]

If you want lots of flowers, go for these:

"standards" -- big pinks, whites and stripes, including doritaenopsis. Well grown mature plants can have up to 20 flowers at once. Leaf span on a mature phal of this type will be 20-24". They can bloom at a smaller size, but flowers will be fewer.

multifloras -- many of these have multitudes of flowers, tho smaller than standards

find out the parentage if given on the tag: crosses with stuartiana, sanderiana, phillipinensis, and schillerianna will have lots of flowers. eg Phal New Wave (offered by Carter & Holmes) is P venosa x stuartiana. Multitudes of yellow flowers.

Waxy red/purples and yellows, with parentage of amboinensis, lueddemanniana, violacea, etc will have relatively few flowers.

Yellows-- paler yellows have a larger percentage of many-flowered big whites, and should have more flowers. Phals with a high percentage of venosa (characterized by a white center in a yellow flower) will tend to put up multi-spikes.

If you are getting relatively few flowers on plants with parentage for many flowers, try to improve your growing conditions as much as you can. Ie increasing the light, repotting to freshen the medium (salts collect in the medium and harm the plant). In good conditions, you should be getting 3-4 new leaves a year, each new leaf bigger than the one just beneath it. If you aren't getting that, improve conditions as much as you can.

Concentrate on growing the best, biggest phals you can and they will give you all they've got.