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Orchid Biotechnology

Wagner A. Vendrame
Environmental Horticulture Department, Tropical Research
and Education Center, Institute of Food and Agricultural
Sciences, University of Florida, Homestead, FL, USA

Amir A. Khoddamzadeh
Department of Earth and Environment, Florida International
University, Miami, FL, USA

ABSTRACT

Orchids belong to one of the largest, most diversified and interesting families
of flowering plants in the world with about 30,000–35,000 species distributed
around the world. Orchid cultivation has resulted in about 250,000 cultivars
and over 160,000 hybrid greges offering a wide array of colors and patterns of
ornamental appeal, as well as reported medicinal value in some species. The
popularity of orchids in the United States has increased in the last 15 years
due to increased knowledge in cultivation practices and propagation methods,
making them more accessible to customers, while offering new and improved
material to growers. Today orchids rank first among potted floriculture crops in
the United States. Biotechnology techniques have contributed to the advances
in orchid production and conservation, includingin vitropropagation meth-
ods, such asin vitrogermination of orchid seeds, micropropagation techniques,
and large-scale mass propagation bioreactor systems. Additional advanced tech-
niques, such as synthetic seed technology provided a system for both the prop-
agation and short-term conservation of orchid seeds, while cryopreservation
of orchid seeds, protocorms, and pollen provided valuable tools for orchid
breeding, genetic improvement, and long-term conservation. Additional top-
ics related to orchid biotechnology address the utilization of molecular mark-
ers, gene technology (genetic transformation), phytochemistry, physiology, dis-
ease control, sequencing, and genomics, among other more specific topics, and

Horticultural Reviews, Volume 44, First Edition. Edited by Jules Janick.
© 2017 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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