Symbiotic seed germination of Grammatophyllum speciosum Blume and Dendrobium draconis Rchb. f., native orchids of Thailand

Handling and propagation of Dendrobium ‘Iriana Jokowi’ in Bogor Botanic Gardens, Indonesia

“…Seed culture were already done to several Dendrobium, such as Dendrobium 'Second Love' (Ferreira et al 2006), Dendrobium 'Sena Red', 'Mini WRL', 'Jaquelyn Thomas', and 'BFC Pink' (Vendrame et al 2007), and Dendrobium draconis Rchb.f. (Nontachaiyapoom et al 2011). Hence, protocols providing regeneration from various vegetative parts of mature plants are essential (Chugh et al 2009).…”

“…The method seed for seed viability testing is through in vitro germination, either symbiotic or asymbiotic; germination in the wild, seed coloring with triphenyltetrazolium chloride or fluorescein diacetate (Nontachaiyapoom et al 2011;Dowling and Jusaitis 2012;Lemay et al 2015;Seaton et al 2015). Viable seed will grow and develop into protocorms.…”

“…The seeds started to germinate since 2 weeks after sowing (data not shown). According Nontachaiyapoom et al (2011) showed that almost 100% of Dendrobium draconis seeds in all treatments germinated at two weeks after sowing but the further development of these seeds varied greatly among treatments. Observation on three months after sowing (3 MAS) showed that germination rate was between 53.92 to 93.81% (Table 1).…”

“…Those stages are: 0) no germination, seed with intact seed coat, 1) enlarged embryo, seed coat ruptured, 2) globular embryo, rhizoid present, 3) appearance of protomeristem, 4) emergence of first leaf, and 5) elongation of first leaf and further development. A seed is considered to be germinated if the seed coat is ruptured by the enlargement of embryo (Nontachaiyapoom et al 2011). Observation after 3 MAS of Dendrobium 'Iriana Jokowi', indicated that the seed's growth and development stages were in line with Nontachaiyapoom et al (2011) (Figure 3).…”

A novel seed baiting technique for the epiphytic orchid Rhynchostele cervantesii, a means to acquire mycorrhizal fungi from protocorms

“…Although most (73%) the world's 17,000-35,000 orchid species exist as tropical epiphytes (Atwood 1986;Cribb et al 2003), surprisingly few taxa have been studied with respect to their mycorrhizal associations compared to their temperate terrestrial counterparts. During the last decade, however, a growing number of studies have been published that document mycorrhizal fungi from tropical orchids worldwide including Brazil (e.g., Pereira et al 2003Pereira et al , 2005, China (e.g., Chen et al 2012), Ecuador (Suárez et al 2006), Puerto Rico (Otero et al 2007), and Thailand (e.g., Nontachaiyapoom et al 2010) among other places. This information comes at a critical time for specialists seeking knowledge of mycorrhizal fungi for conservation purposes (e.g., symbiotic seed germination), but a great deal still must be learned about this aspect of orchid biology before effective protocols can be developed.…”