Propagating Orchids from leaves

[soltrad]

Hello,

A chinese company claims that it has the technology to propagate orchids from leaves. Can anyone confirm whether this technology is for real or pie- in -the- sky?

[jerrymeola]

They are probably talking about cloning or mericloning as it is usually refered to in orchids.

The process takes a part of the living tissue and in a labratory spins the piece in a centrifuge separating the living cells into thousands of individual cells. Each cell then has the abillity to produce an exact replica of the original plant. It is not as simple as it sounds but done regularily (only Papheopedilums and phrags have never been cloned)

A great many orchids are produced by mericlone. It you see a cattleya name it is most probably a mericlone. If it is seed grown the name would be ----- x ----- indicating the crossing of two plants. This naming is not always done consistently. Divisions or seeds from the same plant are also shown by name only. Seed grown plants can vary in size and color while mericlones are almost always exact copies of the parent.

The chinese company probably only meant they were cloning plants the same as done for years all over the world. If it was something new then maybe they developed a technique to reproduce from a part of the plant that was never used before.

[jvasel]

I don't know if this is the same for Orchids, I would assume so. But on most angiosperms (flowering and fruit bearing plants), plants come with an Axillary Bud located between the stem and the petiole of the leaf. The Axillary Bud is an region of growth, however normally a hormone called Auxin prevents it from growing so that the nutrients can to to growing the plant upward, rather than from the sides. If the Apical Meristem (growth area at the top of the stem) is removed, the Axilary Buds begin forming new parts of the plant such as leaves and flowers.

Perhaps what they did was harvested a leaf and provided the proper hormones to allow this area of cell growth (Axillary Bud) to be come active, and the used the method that jerry mentioned above before cell differentiation occurred to produce many cells. Once they stop rotating, the plant cells use gravity to determine which ones become root cells, leaf cells, etc.

[aussie02478]

Ther is such a thing as Kikie paste. and yes you can get identicall small plants from the original plant Phal, Den. especially.Mirrorcloneing is done in some what of a different way and not allway an identical of parent plant.

[fred]

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