Can a Phal. sustain 4 spikes on its first blooming?

16 years ago

I feel like Christmas came early here. Just received a phal. today that has a 4" spike and 3 spikes just breaking through the lower leaves. One new one below and two new ones on the opposite sides, between the leaves. This plant has 10 leaves and is a violacea cross and the spike is growing upwards. It is growing in a 4 inch pot of bark. The leaves are healthy thick. Do violacea crosses start many spikes, but only one develops? This plant is the best $10 present I ever gave myself :)

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Comments (10)

tominnh
16 years ago
Wow sounds like a nice plant. Where did you get it from...?
philohela
16 years ago
I had a mature bellina hybrid that put up at least four new spikes and a couple branches from an old spike last year, all of which bloomed. Apparently this is not the first blooming for the plant, just for you? With ten leaves I am sure your orchid could support those spikes. It would be great if you could take a photo of all that growth for us! Thanks for sharing,

jeanne
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I tried to find the actual paper, but Dr. Wang was or is at Texas A & M and has done extensive research on this topic. Last go round I tried this and it works ! You must have enough light and enough was 750 on my light meter. Commaercial growers have two tricks to preventing phals from spiking 1) heat 2) light If you are hot then you need to cool the plants to initiate. This is a reprint Diana in Houston nicely shared her notes under a thread called "Phal Insider Growers info." Arthur and others added information and had questions. The following is primarily Diana's editing of that original post. Thanks Diana! I just came from my orchid club meeting where we had a local wholesale commercial phalaenopsis grower as the speaker. It was interesting but nothing special until he and Dr. Wang, our mentor and reknown orchid researcher, started talking about what was required to make phals bloom, and have more flowers, (a specialty of Dr. Wang's). Here's the scoop: 1. A phal NOT blooming can be determined by temperature AND light. A commercial grower can KEEP PHALS FROM BLOOMING until a particular time by keeping the temperature above 82 degrees. However, a cheaper way is to shade the greenhouse with 50% shade cloth. 2. To initiate spiking, the temperature must remain consistantly below 82 degrees. A temperature of 90 degrees, even for a short time, will prevent spiking. 3. To have more flowers on a spike, from the time the spike is 2 inches, until it is 8 inches, the temperature must remain consistantly between 65 degrees and 77 degrees. Day and night difference is not involved. This commercial grower gets the phals as 4 to 6 inch bare root plants from Taiwan. He pots them in 4 inch pots and grows them on for about 6 months, at which time they go into 6 inch pots. He then keeps the benches of phals he wants to spike under plastic with an air conditioner (on 24 hours a day) at each end until the spikes are 8 inches tall (approximately 6 weeks). He then moves them out until they have 4 or 5 flowers open, then delivers them to jobbers. Believe me this works !! I spiked about 300 phals I was growing under lights one year - all seedlings -- all novelty -- I gave 290 of them away and to fund raisers for charity. Prior to that I grew only in a greenhouse but I lost not one bud in my air conditioned light room. He also did a study on why that happens -- I wish I could find the study but this little article sums it up very well
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Hey, Holly. Definitely a nice problem to have.:) As the others said, you have to change something to accomodate the tall spikes. *And* check them every day or two, because they tend to bend toward the lights, and will grow right into the lights if you don't watch it. My spiking phals are under the stationary lights, which are set higher than the moving lights. As they get taller they get moved to the edges of the lights. When they are getting within a week or so of opening, they go upstairs into the south windows, which have Wonderlites suspended in them. That way I can enjoy the bud fattening up and getting ready to open more often. I haven't had any problems with bud blasting from moving them upstairs. Since I like phal spikes au naturel, and the newer hybrids tend to have orderly presentation of flowers, (also at least half of my phals are the "novelty" type) I don't worry overmuch about aligning the buds to the light. Enjoy your new problem!
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olyagrove
16 years ago
10 leaves is plenty
Wow, sounds like a happy plant ...I too would love to know where this plant came from :)

Thank you,
Olya
orchidcrazy
Original Author
16 years ago
Thank you all for the responses. This plant is from EOOM. I do not see any old spikes on this plant, but I did count all the leaves on it including all the little ones on the bottom of the plant. Don't know if they really count because they are seedling size leaves. I probably got lucky, being Christmas time. I hope my plant is like Jeanne and branches next year too. I will try to figure out how to put a picture on a website so I can show you my new "baby".
orchidcrazy
Original Author
16 years ago
{{gwi:207038}}
Whole plant

{{gwi:209835}}
Spikes on the other side

{{gwi:209837}}
Below the larger spike

The one below the larger spike is darker green, so maybe it is a keiki.
highjack
16 years ago
That is one healthy looking phal!

If you look at the second picture, on the left side, there appears to be a cut off spike. The last picture might be showing a basal keiki forming. There is a relatively recent thread entitled Phal Oddities and you can see some examples of phals doing what they want to do.

Enjoy your blooms!

Brooke
orchidcrazy
Original Author
16 years ago
Thank you Brooke. I am looking forward to the blooms as they should be fragrant. I think the one below the spike and the one below the other in the second picture are basal keikis. Thats okay, I will be happy with 2 spikes. :) That is a broken root tip in the second picture just behind the spike. This will be its first blooming.
highjack
16 years ago
Your $10 Christmas present to yourself will give you pleasure for years - enjoy the show! Please share pics with us when you get blooms.

Brooke
Sheila
16 years ago
I also have a violacea cross from EOoM, very possibly the same cross. I haven't examined mine closely. It arrived in spike and I'm so anxious to see the bloom. Happy growing.

Sheila :)
orchidcrazy
Original Author
16 years ago
Thank you Brooke, I hope to keep it alive. I don't have a really good "track record" with my plants. I had to stop keeping old labels because it was depressing. :)
Sheila, its violacea crossed with Goldberry. If this is the same plant as yours, I hope we can compare flowers when each of ours blooms. Being a cross, there may be differences in the flowers.

Can a Phal. sustain 4 spikes on its first blooming?

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Can a Phal. sustain 4 spikes on its first blooming?

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