Brassolaeliacattleya, Kagawara and Mokara. With the ideal conducive climate the Philippines has, both tropical and semi-temperate orchids could be grown in the country, making the archipelago an ideal propagating area for orchids.
Orchid Propagation In the early years of orchid culture, people have no idea of how to propagate these plants. Orchid hobbyist usually get their orchids from forests. Then, they found out that orchids also produce fruits (capsules) when their flowers are pollinated naturally by bees or artificially by man. Each orchid fruit contain thousands of seeds. Orchid seeds are very small (about 470-560 microns long, 80-129 microns wide) and weight about 6 micrograms. Their size is one of the factors which gave them the tendency to be disperse by wind for thousands of kilometers, away from their original habitat. However, not all of these seeds germinate and grow into mature plants in nature. Most (but not all) orchid seeds need a symbiotic fungus or mycorrhizae, usually of the genus Rhizoctonia, in order to germinate. The fungus needs to infect the seeds in order for it to survive in its early stages of development. The mycorrhizae infects the basal part of the seed and release an enzyme which converts starch in the surrounding area into simple sugars. These will be the energy source or food of the germinating embryo up to its development into a mature plant. Not all of the seeds grow in nature. Only the seeds which land on a suitable surface (a rock, a bark of a branch or on the ground) and infected with its particular mycorrhizae, germinates and grows into a plant. This comprise only about an average of only 1%. However, through science and technology, almost 99% of the seeds could now be raised into mature plants through embryo culture. Embryo culture or embryo rescue is one of the techniques used in the commercial breeding and propagation of orchids. Thousands of plants could be produced in this method in a year, due to the fact that orchids literally produce thousands to millions of seeds (about 6,200 in Cephalanthera grandiflora and 2-3 million in Cattleya labiata). In this method the viable seeds or ovules are sterilized and placed inside a flask containing artificial growing media. The media consist of mineral salts, vitamins, amino acids, sugars and growth hormones. After a year or so inside a flask, seedlings are then brought out into the nursery where they grow into maturity. From these plants that are produced, a breeder usually selects the best flowering plant, registers it and then clones this selected plant through the conventional division, cutting or kiekis method, or better still, through plant tissue culture. Plant tissue culture, particularly meristem culture or mericloning is the most efficient way of mass producing a selected species or hybrid. In this method, the shoot tip or very young inflorescence is severed, sterilized, and its actively growing region is obtained and cut into minute pieces and inoculated into a flask containing artificial culture media. The tissue is permitted to undergo callus formation, and then grows into minute orchid plantlets. These callus and plantlets are then further divided to produce the required number of plants inside the laboratory. When the right number of plants are obtained, then, the plantlets are then hardened and transferred into the nursery where they are permitted to grow into maturity. The plants produced in these way are true-to-type and identical to that of the mother plant.
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