Epicatt producing too many Keikies...

16 years ago

Hi all, I am hoping someone might be able to help me with this annoying problem. I bought a Epc. Hatillo 'Pinta' with two spikes starting. Unfortunately, the spikes never developed. The part of the spike that leads out from the top of the pseudo bulb seems to be getting really fat (almost like another pseudo bulb) & has been producing kiekies all over the place! This has happened to both the front & back p.b.s that had spikes starting. Question #1: How can I get it to stop making kiekies & produce flower spikes on that stem? #2 How can I prevent this kind of thing in the future? #3 How can I post a photo of what I am experiencing so that you can see what I am talking about?

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Comments (8)

arthurm
16 years ago
The correct name of your orchid is probably El Hatillo. (mossiae x tampensis).

How and where are you growing the plant? How much fertilizer, water, sunshine?
ray_ratliff
Original Author
16 years ago
Yes, you are correct, the correct name is El Hatillo. I am growing it on my west facing balcony with my other orchids. I have everything from vandas to phragmipedums out there. This particular plant is living with my Cattleyas. During the summer (when it developed the spikes) it gets watered once every 4-5 days (depending on how dry the medium is & how the leaves & P.B.s look. From Early Dec. it is watered every 7-10 days (again, depending on how dry the medium feels & how the leaves & P.B.s look). They get a balanced 20-20-20 at 1/4 strength applied with its weekly watering. On the 4th water cycle, I withhold fertilizer to help clean out some of the excess minerals. The light situation is pretty good. I have it with my Cattleyas. It generally receives around 3,000 F.C. of light starting around 12:00 thru sunset. Light does become brighter as the sun begins to shine stronger thru the screen. The Cat.s that it lives with have all got new growth & have bloomed, so I am pretty sure that the light, water, & fertilizer are pretty good. My mother has one (I actually gave here the one that was in full flower so she could enjoy it more) that she grows on her west facing porch with her cattleyas. She uses the same type of fertilizer & has a very similar light situation. Do you have one of these? If so, how do you grow it?

-Ray-
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Sorry it took me so long to acknowledge your contributions to this post - the last few days have been pretty hectic. Calvin, thank you for your words of encouragement. It's been three weeks since I first started to apply the rooting hormone. The second leaf is now beginning to fade. If the last leaf can hang on there for another three weeks, the plant may just make it. And if not, it will be part of the total learning experience. Howard, I read your comments very carefully. I am quite mystified as to why there was such a total disintegration of the root system on this phal., which produced such an abundance of flowers over so long a period. Or perhaps that was part of the reason. I suspect it was rootless for quite a while before I noticed. It couldn't possibly have been due to lack of light - it was given four hours of dappled morning sunlight EVERY day from mid-May until September. This summer was particularly hot - inside temperatures were a steady 30 C day and night for most of August and there was no breeze coming from the east (and, unusually, very little even from the west). I provided all the orchids with rudimentary humidity trays. Perhaps the bottom of the pots stayed damp for too long ?? Anyhow, based on my experience with the one phal that has already survived two summers, all the phals have now been removed from the humidity tray, and the root systems are being monitored carefully. All leaves are a healthy mid-green. As far as the Catt. alliances are concerned, they definitely need more light. I should have realised this from observation of the growth habit of the Epicatt after I moved it to the east window. Before that it produced its first rebloom. After the move, it produced progressively three new leads, but instead of developing into one leaf and a sheath, as before, each lead grew two new leaves.. I thought that this was perhaps its normal growth habit, and that it would produce blooms from a new growth in early spring, but it seems that I was mistaken. So,Phalpal, Jodi and Sarah I hope you've learnt something from my mistakes. I certainly have!! Judy
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Keiki (Robin) sent 3 varieties of seeds for the secret santa swap: - Red Sugar Apple (OMG - I have NEVER heard of these. I looked them up and am BEYOND excited to start them. They look SO COOL!!! I am so, so so grateful for these!!!) - Clitoria ternatea - blue pea vine (These have been on my want list for some time, and now I finally have them!!! The flowers are really bizarre. I can't wait!!) - Salvia coccinea - pink (have never tried this variety of salvia before!!!) Thank you SO MUCH keiki! These are REALLY cool - it's almost like you knew EXACTLY what I'd love!! Thanks so much for the thoughtfulness. I am so happy to hear that the peppers are producing well already! It made me smile when I read that. Apparently they are perennials in your state, so that's pretty awesome! :)
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Comments (23)
archades, I'm going to jump in here and offer a suggestion or two. I am going to suggest that your keiki paste, whatever it is, apparently has your orchid plants so confused that they don't know what to produce on the nodes of those bloom spikes. The three photos above this show flower spike nodes that have what appears to be undifferentiated tissue growths. The process has probably changed since I was actively involved in tissue culturing orchids, but we would take these growth buds and put them in a jar with a liquid nutrient solution, and place the jar on a rotating wheel. The tissue in the jar would only grow into undifferentiated tissue.....meaning no roots, or leaves, just more green tissue. When the "blobs" of tissue got large enough, they would be removed and carefully picked apart, and placed into more jars and returned to the wheel. A few times like this and you would have literally hundreds or thousands of these pieces of tissue. When we had enough to produce the number of plants we needed/wanted, we would take about 25 pieces and place them in jars with sterile jelled nutrient, seal them and put them on a shelf under lights. As soon as the plants became stationary, they would recognize up and down, and begin to produce roots that would grow down, and leaves that would grow up.....all these little plants would be exact genetic copies of the parent plant.... Clones. I would suggest stopping the keiki paste, and let the things on the bloom spikes grow.....When enough of the hormones have worked their way out of the plants system, perhaps these things will decide to either be plants...kiekies, or more bloom spikes. Its just a suggestion. As for being impatient.....If you can't get past that, perhaps another kind of plant may be worth considering......Orchids: from pollination to seed harvest = about a year, from seed to bloom = at least 7 years when I was in the business. If you can find a source of Phals. fully grown in 3 inch pots, with good growth you can expect blooms in from 1 to 2 years. They just don't grow fast. Hope this helps. Bill
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Update 7/14 2017 - Here are some pics of the continued growth from previous post. (Roger obesum) (3 branches in front) I accidentally hit the plant w/ my camera in this next one. Aaand I knocked it over. But, I got the shot. I got some close ups between the two larger branches (above & below). There's even a little bit of new growth sprouting out in there. Rob
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petite_orange
16 years ago
Last I heard, Epicatt is sooooo over - now it is Cattlechea - now, isn't that elegant?
Cheers - Nancy
jane__ny
16 years ago
Wild guess - cut back on fertilizer or change to a high P. Lowering Nitrogen might spur the plant to concentrate on flowering.

Jane
ray_ratliff
Original Author
16 years ago
Good Point Jane! I wonder, will that mean that i need to cut off the current keiki producing stems so that it can now focus on making new growth on the pseudo bulbs from the original plant?
olyagrove
16 years ago
I grow this plant, and it needs a lot of light....It would not flower until I placed it next to vandas...Now it is getting long hours of bright light
I fertilize with Nutricote - add a spoon in each pot, and that is about it...
{{gwi:142224}}
Olya
mehitabel
16 years ago
Not sure what you mean by "keikis" on an epicatt. Sometimes what starts off as a sheath fails to develop into flowers, and instead a second thing that looks like a small pb forms at the leaf junction instead. I never saw one develop roots.

That happened to me a few times on various catts, usually an indication that either it or the conditions weren't enough to produce flowers. As I recall, this only happened with bifoliates.

I have grown El Hatillo. I believe Olya is right about the light needed to flower it.
ray_ratliff
Original Author
16 years ago
Mehitabel, you have described exactly what has happened, it forms a pseudo bulb. The difference in my case is that it now has two more new growths coming out the side of the new P.B. & they are forming roots. This happened a few months back & i cut the kiekies away & potted them up... so far they are looking nice. I will do as you say Olya, I will move it to the vanda area & see what happens! Thank you all for your advice!

-Ray-

Epicatt producing too many Keikies...

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Epicatt producing too many Keikies...

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arthurm

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