thanks all. i'll decide this weekend. the plant just grew a huge new beautiful leaf, so, it's clearly doing well. i'm not so sure it is going to rebloom from the same stem if I leave it completely alone and don't cut it at all. So, my choice is really to cut it to a node or cut the whole thing down to the crown. Hmmm.... arthurm: i've see your pic before and read many posts about whether or not to cut the spike. I posted my thread because I still couldn't decide what to do.

Hi! ^ ^ I think it could be of use to someone if I type out my experience. Perhaps a collection of experiences will lead to some form of conclusion of the hypothesis about lighting etc. It began when one of my two orchids had a nasty little pussy cat tip over it's pot. The orchid's spike severed completely off. Since my orchids both bloom at the same time I cut the spike off the other orchid. Of both the spikes, the yellow had 2 blooms (1 bud spike was 6 inches long). The purple had 8 buds (one bloom spike was 10 inches long) which is the one the cat had tipped over. I will also note that I put the purple stem immediately into water since I had heard the plant crash. I have had both spikes into a clear glass vase (about 1-1.5 cup of water) in a pitch black game room except light from the teli and monitors. To be more specific the vase is in the shadow of the "light". The temp is always around 78 degrees fahrenheit. I enjoyed the blooms for a couple of weeks and the large bloomed ones finally started to look fatigued so I pinched those off (about 4-5). The rest dropped off by themselves. I totally forgot about these stems/spikes. Here is where it gets interesting, about 2-3 month later I was dusting and cleaning up the "mess" at the sink when I noticed the yellow spike was still green at the end, the purple was brown so I cut it under water to a healthy green looking point. I had decided regardless of the various postings on the intraweb saying that a spike couldn't grow roots I would still let these two try. It now has been 5 months, the yellow has a small root growing at the end, the purple is still green. They are in the pitch black room, I change the water sporadically from every 4 days to 3 weeks with tepid from faucet. Basically when I remember the poor babies but more so at the beginning than now (which changes now I see a little root). I will also mention I was using the cities icky chlorinated fluoride injected tap water, I will now change to bottled water and watch the results.

Very nice article. I always trim my spikes so the phals re-bloom for me. Then after that, I cut them off so the plant can rejuvinate itself. I don't want to be too greedy ;)

I cut mine as soon as flowering is finished. Zygo spikes die quickly on their own unless there's a developing seed pod to "nourish". --Stitz--