- ORCHID BIOTECHNOLOGY 177
dominate the orchid market representing more than 75% of all the
orchids sold in the United States, which replacedCattleyain the 1980s
as the most popular orchid (Griesbach 2002). Thailand (world’s sixth
largest exporter) reported sales of US$30 million a year from orchid
cut flower exports, followed by Singapore with US$16 million a year
(Reddy 2008).
Orchid biotechnology is a complex subject that encompasses a wide
array of technologies and topics, including genomics, gene technology,
gene sequencing, genetic transformation, phylogeny, germplasm con-
servation, cryopreservation, disease control, and postharvest technol-
ogy, among other basic aspects. Such topics somehow complement each
other and have been previously reviewed (Mudalige and Kuehnle 2004;
Chugh et al. 2009; Hsiao et al. 2011; Hossain et al. 2013; Teixeira da Silva
2013).
In this review, we aim to provide an overview of the current biotech-
nology methods as applied to orchid production and conservation,
including advances and the latest technologies available. This review
focuses onin vitropropagation, bioreactor, synthetic seed, and cryop-
reservation technologies.
The history of biotechnology in orchid production goes back to the
first methods developed for orchid seed germination (Moore 1849), fol-
lowed by symbioticin vitroseed germination (Bernard 1899), tech-
niques for asymbioticin vitroseed germination (Knudson 1922), and
extending toin vitropropagation or micropropagation (Arditti and Ernst
1993). The first report of clonal propagation of orchids was in 1949
by Dr. Gavino Rotor, who was a graduate student in the Department
of Botany, Cornell University (Arditti 1992). In the 1950s, the orchid
industry was the first to use tissue culture on a large-scale (micropropa-
gation) to produce quality plants free of viruses (Kyte and Kleyn 1996).
Morel (1960) reported one of the first accounts of the technique to cul-
ture meristem to produce virus-freeCymbidium, although Arditti (1992)
suggests that Hans Thomale (1957) was the first to publish a paper on
shoot tip culture. Micropropagation allows the mass clonal propaga-
tion of orchidsin vitroand today this is the most efficient, practical,
and economic method of producing orchids for the nursery industry.
Protocols for micropropagation of orchids have been listed in many
publications, spanning decades of studies as indicated in some recent
reviews (Hossain et al. 2013; Teixeira da Silva 2013). More recently
bioreactor technology has enabled the production of orchids in liq-
uid suspension cultures under automated systems (Young et al. 2000;
Ziv 2000).