What to do with Doritaenopsis with terminal spike

[RosieC]

Originally Posted by cirillonb

I'm new enough that even though I have seen reference to a "terminal spike." I really don't know what that is, how to recognize it, and why it happens. With apologies for hijacking this thread, can someone enlighten me?
thanks
Nick

As Anthony has said, a terminal spike is one coming from the crown of the Phal.

For orchids which have multiple growth points on each plant (sympedial) this is not a problem and is quite normal (for example Dens, Paphs, Miltonia)

For orchids which have a single growth point on each plant (monopedial) this means the plant will no longer grow from that point. Sometimes they will grow a Basil Keiki and that will take over as the main growth point, but that is not garanteed. Phals (and Doritaenopsis which is closely realated to Phals) are monopedial orchids and so you don't really want to get one with a termainal spike.

[Anthony]

You can easily recognize a terminal spike when you see a new spike is growing from the crown of the plant. It will most of the times have a new leaf halfway.

Regal Orchids (regalorchids.co.uk and regalorchidsonline.com) is doing a really bad job here on customer support. When you have a question about their store they will reply to you within the day. If you're having a problem ... you can wait ... 1 week or so before you get a reply. They will say they're "busy" but I don't believe it (most, 90%, of the items are "out of stock")

I have attached a picture of the terminal spike.

I will keep this topic up to date (whenever I receive a reply so ... next week?)

[V_coerulea]

I would definately use keiki paste on several buds to improve my chances of getting a functioning plant from your otherwise disfunctional plant that makes wonderful flowers.

[aesir22]

here is a pic

[aesir22]

I have the same problem with an orchid that looks very similar. After the blooms fell I decided to continue to care for it to see what would happen. Now I have what looks like a leaf growing from the other small leaf on the terminal spike. Whether it will be a keiki or not I don't know, but I am interested to find out

[Anthony]

Well ... as for an update, they are definitely ignoring my e-mails since last week. Haven't received a reply in 2 weeks, will send another one tomorrow.

[RosieC]

Aesir, I wonder where you bought yours. It's just I know Anthony bought from a UK supplier and I just wondered if it's the same one.

[aesir22]

I got mine in Morrisons lol, supermarket NOID purchase

[RosieC]

Ah, OK. Different place then

[Anthony]

I've seen a bunch of terminal spiked phals lately.

It was in a high quality store in Belgium. Most of them were plants with 3 spikes where 1 of them was a terminal spike. Looks like it's hard to produce phals with 3 spikes, I think they use some sort of hormone to force the plants which can cause terminal spikes.